QUA 
trees is black and a little furrowed, that of 
younger trees is smooth, grey, and marked 
with broad yellow spots ; the wood is hard, 
white, and without any remarkable taste ; 
leaves numerous, alternate, composed of 
several leaflets, oblong, pr nearly elliptic, 
sharp at the end, of d deep green colour, 
placedalternately on very short foot stalks; 
flow'ers on branched spikes, of a yellow 
colour. Simaruba is a native of South 
America and the West Indies ; in Jamaica 
it is knowm by the names of mountain-dam- 
son, bitter-darnson, and stave-wood. The 
drug known by the name of quassia is the 
bark of the roots of this tree, which is rough, 
scaly, and warted ; the inside, when fresh, 
is a full yellow, when dry it is paler ; it has 
a little smell; the taste is bitter, but not 
disagreeable ; macerated in water, or in 
rectified spirit, it quickly impregnates them 
with its bitterness, and with a yellow tinc- 
ture ; the cold infusion in water is rather 
stronger in taste than the decoction^ the 
latter gets turbid and of a reddish brown-as 
it cools. 
Q. amara, grows to the height of several 
feet, and sends off many strong branches. 
The wood is of a white colour and light ; 
the bark is thin and grey. It is a native of 
South America, particularly of Surinam, 
and also of some of the West Indian islands. 
The root, bark, and wood of this tree, have 
all places in the materia medica. The 
wood is most generally used, and is said to 
be a tonic, stomachic, antiseptic, and febri- 
fuge. 
Q. excelsa, or polygama, is likewise very 
common in the woodlands of Jamaica. 
It is a beautiful, tall, and stately tree ; some 
of them being one hundred feet high, and 
ten feet in circumference. The' trunk is 
straight, smooth, and tapering, sending off 
its branches towards the top. The outside 
bark is pretty smooth, and of a light grey, 
or ash colour. The bark of the roots is of 
a yellow cast, somewhat like the cortex 
simaruba. The inner bark is tough, and 
composed of fine flaxy fibres. The bark of 
tliis quassia, but especially the wood, is in- 
tensely bitter. The wood is of a yellow 
colour, tough, but not very hard ; it takes 
a good polish, and is used as flooring. In 
taste and virtues it is nearly equal to 
the Q. amara, and frequently sold for the 
same. Besides its use in medicine, quas- 
sia is supposed to be consumed in large 
quantities by the brewers, to give a bit- 
terish taste to the beer. 
QUAVER, in music, a measure of time 
QUE 
equal to half a crotclief, or an eighth of -A 
semibreve. Tlie quaver is divided into two 
semiquavers, and four demisemiquavers. 
QUERCITRON, in dying, the internal 
bark of the quercus nigra ; it yields its co- 
lour, which is yellow, by infusion to water, 
and by the common mordants gives a per- 
manent dye. See Dying. 
QUERCUS, in botany, the oak tree, a 
genus of the Monoecia Polyandria class and 
order. Natural order of Amentaceae. Es- 
sential character: male, calyx commonly 
five-cleft; corolla none; stamina five to 
ten : female, calyx one-leaved, quite entire, 
rugged ; corolla none ; styles two to five ; 
seed one, ovate. There are twenty-six 
species and many varieties; Q. robur, the 
common oak, attains to a great size, parti- 
cularly in woods ; singly, it is rather a spread- 
ing tree, sending off, horizontally, immense 
branches, which divide and subdivide con- 
siderably ; the trunk is covered with a rug- 
ged brown bark ; leaves alternate, oblong, 
broader towards the end, the edges deeply 
sinuate, forming obtuse or rounded lobes, 
of a dark green colour, five inches in length, 
two and a half in breadth, they are decidu- 
ous, but often remain on the tree till the 
new buds are ready to burst. The male 
flowers come out on aments in bundles, 
trom the buds, alternately and singly from 
the axils of the leaves ; they are pendulous, 
cylindrical, consisting of yellow, short, 
roundish, scattered bundles of anthers ; 
above the males the aments of female flow- 
ers come out, each composed of three or 
four small reddish florets, placed alternately, 
having at the base little reddish scales, which 
afterwards become the cup, forming the 
rugged external surface of it; acorn ovate, 
cylindrical, coriaceous, very smooth except 
at the base, where it appears as if rasped, 
one-celled, valveless, received at bottom in 
a hemispherical cup, tubercled on the out- 
side ; the germ is three-celled, with two 
embryos in each cell, fastened to the base. 
The wood of the oak, when of a good sort, 
is well known to be hard, tough, tolerably 
flexible, not easily splintering, strong with- 
out being too heavy, and not easily admit- 
ting water ; for these qualities it is prefer- 
ed to all other timber for building ships; it 
would be difficult to enumerate all the 
uses to which it may be applied. Oak saw- 
dust is the principle indigenous vegetable 
used in dying fustian ; all the varieties of 
drabs and different shades of brown are 
made with oak saw-dust, variously managed 
and compounded. Oak apples are also used 
