Quassia

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A genus of plants, of the order Simarubaceæ and tribe Simarubeæ. It is characterized by a large columnar receptacle bearing a small five-lobed calyx, five long erect petals, ten threadlike stamens, and a five-lobed ovary ripening into five fleshy drupes. There are 2 species: one, little known, is from tropical Africa; the other, Q. amara, is a tall and smooth tree of tropical America, with intensely bitter wood, bearing alternate pinnate leaves with a winged petiole, and having terminal racemes of large scarlet tubular flowers.
2. n. [lowercase] A drug, also called bitter-wood, consisting of the wood of Picræna (Quassia) excelsa, and of two or three related trees; also, a medicinal preparation from these woods. The original tree was Quassia amara, the Surinam quassia. Its wood is still in use in France and Germany, but is largely superseded by that of the more abundant Picræna excelsa, a tall tree, the bitter-ash of Jamaica and some smaller islands. A substitute for these is Simaruba amara, the mountain-damson or bitter damson or stavewood of the West Indies and northern South America. Quassiawood is imported in billets, and appears in the shops in the form of chips, raspings, etc. As a remedy it possesses in the highest degree the properties of the simple bitters. Its virtues are due to the principle quassin. Cups turned from the wood impart a bitter taste to their contents, and were once popular. A sweetened infusion of quassia is useful to destroy flies. Picræna excelsa has sometimes been substituted for hops in brewing, but this use is considered deleterious. See bitter ash (under ash), bitterwood, and mountain-damson.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The wood of several tropical American trees of the order Simarubeæ, as Quassia amara, Picræna excelsa, and Simaruba amara. It is intensely bitter, and is used in medicine and sometimes as a substitute for hops in making beer.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. handsome South American shrub or small tree having bright scarlet flowers and yielding a valuable fine-grained yellowish wood; yields the bitter drug quassia from its wood and bark
2. n. a bitter compound used as an insecticide and tonic and vermifuge; extracted from the wood and bark of trees of the genera Quassia and Picrasma