252 THE COMMERCIAL QUASSIA, OR BITTERWOOD. 



rowed, but that of the younger trees is smooth, grey, and here and there 

 marked with broad spots of a yellow colour. The wood is hard, white, 

 and without any remarkable taste. 



The bark of the root is the part used in medicine, and is exported from 

 Jamaica in bales. It is odourless, but bitter, and oecurs in broad folded, 

 very fibrous pieces several feet long, which are externally rough, warty, 

 and marked with transverse ridges. The epidermis is of a greyish or 

 whitish yellow colour, beneath it the bark is darker and yellowish brown. 

 Ou the inner surface the bark is pale yellowish white. 



Linnaeus, Browne, and others assigned the Bursera gummifera as the 

 source of this bark, a fact first doubted by Jacquin. Simaruba bark 

 yields its properties to both water and alcohol. Its infusion appears to be 

 more bitter than a decoction of it. It acts as a tonic, and is used in dys- 

 pepsia, diarrhoea, and especially in the latter stages of dysentery ; hence 

 called by the Germans, Euhrrinde (Dysentery bark). It has also emetic 

 and laxative properties in large doses. 



Lastly, we have the Quassia excelsa of Swartz, the Simaruba excelsa 

 of De Candolle, the -Pic7~cena excelsa of Lindley, the Bitterwood of Jamaica, 

 and Bitter ash of some of the other West India Islands. 



The wood of this tree is the commercial Bitterwood of the present day, 

 and which yields the chips of the shops. It has quite taken the place of 

 the Quassia amara — to distinguish it from which, it is sometimes termed 

 Lignum Quassias Jamaciensis. 



The tree is common on the plains and lower mountains, and thrives also 

 in more elevated mountains, as in some parts of Manchester 2500 feet above 

 the sea level. It flowers in December. The following is MacFayden's 

 description of it in his 'Flora' of Jamaica : 



A " tree 50-60 feet in height with the branches spreading ; the bark 

 rimose, ash-coloured, internally albido-florescent, with very tenacious fibrils. 

 Leaves alternate, inpari-pinnate ; leaflets opposite, shortly petioluled, 

 oblong, acuminate, unequal at the base, blunt at the apex, venose, glabrous 

 Racemes towards the ends of the branchlets axillary, very compound, 

 panicled, subcorymose, dichotomoucly branched, spreading, diffuse, many- 

 flowered. Peduncle compressed, rufescenti-puberulous. Flowers small, 

 pale, polygamous. Filaments of the male flower much larger than the 

 petals : in the fertile, of the same length. In the male, merely the rudi- 

 ments of the pistil, in the fertile ovaries, 3 : style longer than the stamens, 

 3-quetrous, 3-fid Drupes 3, but only one coming to perfection, size of a 

 pea, black, shining, fixed on a hemispherical receptacle. Not solitary, glo- 

 bose, with the shell fragile." 



A lofty spreading tree, with leaves like the English Ash tree. It is an 

 excellent timber. The wood is of a pale yellow colour, becoming darker 

 on exposure ; light, not veiy hard ; takes a fine polish, and is much used 

 for flooring. Bed posts and clothes-presses are sometimes made of it, as 

 no insect remains near the wood on account of its bitter quality. An 

 efflorescence of nitrate of potash is often found upon it. 



Bitterwood is exported from Jamacia in billets of various sizes (some- 



