256 
QUASSIA SIMARUBA. 
introduced into the Royal Garden at Kew, through the skill and 
industry of Mr. Alexander Anderson. 
The Quassia Srmaruba is a native of South America, South 
Carolina, and the West India Islands, in which latter it is known 
by the name of mountain damson. It is usually found in sandy 
places, growing to a considerable height and thickness, and sending 
off alternate spreading branches. The bark of the old trees is black, 
and a little furrowed, but that of the younger trees is smooth, grey, 
and here and there marked with broad yellow spots ; the wood is 
hard, white, and without any remarkable taste; the leaves are 
numerous, pinnate, and stand alternately on the branches ; the 
leaflets, which vary in their number, are elliptical, smooth on the 
upper side, and of a deep green colour, beneath whitish, and stand 
alternately on short footstalks ; the flowers, which are of a yellowish 
colour, are placed on branched spikes, or long axillary panicles, 
supporting both male and female flowers ; though, according to Dr. 
Wright, the female flower is never found at Jamaica, on the same 
tree which produces the male flower; the calyx on both flowers is 
small, monophyllous, and cut into five obtuse, erect segments ; the 
petals of the corolla are five, sessile, equal, lance-shaped, and about 
triple the length of the calyx, into which they are inserted; the 
nectarium consists of ten oval hairy scales, inserted at the base of 
the filaments ; the stamina are ten, slender, equal, the length of the 
corolla, and furnished with long anthers ; the receptacle is a fleshy 
substance of an orbicular shape, marked with ten furrows. The 
female flower is furnished with five roundish germens, adhering 
together; the style is erect, cylindrical, about the length of the 
corolla, and divided at the top into five recurved persistent stigmas ; 
the fruit is an oval, black, smooth, fleshy, soft pulp ; the number of 
these is five on each common receptacle, but seldom more than three 
of them arrive at perfection, when they each contain an oblong, 
pointed nut, with a flattish kernel ; the flowers appear in April. 
Sensible Qualities. The Cortex Simarubae of the shops is 
the bark of the roots of this tree ; it is rough, .scaly, and warted ; 
the inside when fresh is a bright yellow, but when dry, paler ; it 
has little smell, taste bitter, but not disagreeable. Macerated in 
water or rectified spirits, both menstrua become quickly impregnated 
with its taste and colour ; boiling water seems to act less upon it 
than cold, the cold infusion being stronger than the decoction ; this 
last is of a transparent yellow colour while hot, but grows turbid 
and of a reddish brown as it cools. According to the analysis of 
