Flora Medica

CEDRELACE^E.A large tree 80-100 feet high. Leaves equally pinnated ; leafletsovate-oblong, acute, undulated, leathery, entire, in about 3 pairs,smooth on both sides. Flowers numerous, in terminal and axillarypanicles. Petals whitish. Capsule the size of a peach. Bark verybitter, called Cail-Cedra, febrifugal. The Blacks use it in infusion anddecoction, never in powder. Leprieur says it is called Karson Khayi,and employed as a remedy for the fevers so common in the damp districtsof the Gambia. Forsten, p. 12.310. Juribali or Euribali Hancock in med. bot. trans. 1834.p. 36.A small tree. Leaves alternate, oblong, pointed, on short compressedchannelled petioles ; stipules often so much developed as to resemble theleaves, auriculate, rounded, obtuse, stalked. Panicles long, lax, divaricate.Calyx entire. Petals 4, lanceolate-ovate, white, spreading.Tube of the stamens campanulate, inflated, 8-toothed, with 8 anthersin its notches. Ovary obtusely conical, pubescent ; style short ; stigmacapitate. Capsule ovate, 1-celled, 3-valved, containing a single seed,which is roundish and crowned with a trifid vving,arillate on one side only;it is veined, and resembles the nutmeg in shape, but is only half its sizewith a fleshy albumen and foliaceous cotyledons. Bark a potentbitter and astringent it ; appears to be far superior to Peruvian barkin fevers of a typhoid and malignant nature. It is cordial and purgative;and is also a powerful diaphoretic, especially if taken warm. Hancock, I.e.It is not known to what genus this belongs. The description given byDr. Hancock is not sufficient to enable a botanist even to be certainthat it belongs to either this order or the last. 158