GLAUCOUS BITTER-WOOD. 
21 
This species of Bitter- Wood often confounded with the 
officinal kind, was first observed by Humboldt in the Island 
of Cuba, near the port of La Trinidad, and according to 
the Herbarium of Poiteau, it also exists in St. Domingo, 
where it was seen probably by Aublet. In Key West, 
according to Dr. Blodgett, it becomes a lofty tree and 
flowers in April. 
The Simaruba excelsa, according to Aublet, attains the 
height of 60 feet, with a diameter of 2J feet. The timber, 
Dr. Macfadyen remarks, is of an excellent quality, the wood 
being of a yellowish colour, inodorous, light, not very hard, 
but capable of receiving a very fine polish, and in Jamaica 
is much used for flooring. Insects will not approach the 
bed-posts and clothes-presses made of it on account of its 
bitter quality ; and it has been employed for this reason to 
make cabinets for the preservation of collections of insects. 
The officinal part of the Simaruba officinalis , (from which 
the present species is scarcely distinct), is the bark of the 
root. It is inodorous, with a bitter but not disagreeable taste. 
The pieces are of a fibrous texture, rough, scaly, covered 
with warts, and of a full yellow colour within, when fresh. 
Alcohol and water take up all its active matters by simple 
maceration, better than at a boiling heat. It is one of the 
most intense and durable bitters known, and has the pro- 
perty of a tonic and anti-spasmodic, being employed with 
advantage in intermittent and bilious fevers, obstinate diar- 
rhoea, dysentery, and dyspeptic affections. The wood is 
much used in England to give bitterness to malt liquors, 
though the use of it subjects those brewers to a very heavy 
penalty. 
Every part of the present species is perfectly smooth, 
and the young branches and panicles are glaucous. The 
leaflets, 5 or 6 pair, are occasionally both alternate and 
opposite, oblong, obtuse, entire, narrowed, and somewhat 
oblique at the base, paler beneath, but not pubescent. The 
Vol, hi. — 4 
