Flora Medica

STRYCHNOS.1-2 inches in diameter. Stem as much as 80-120 feet long, withoutbranches, only breaking into ramifications at the upper end. Leaves3-nerved, elliptical or oblong, acuminate, smooth. Hooks solitary,opposite the leaves, thickest at the points. Cymes axillary, lax. CorollaJ of an inch long, funnel-shaped, greenish-white, smelling sweet likeJasmine. Fruits the size of a middling apple, each placed upon a shortthick, flexuose peduncle, which is thickest at the point; globose,smooth, shining, at first brownish yellow, afterwards bright pink.From the bark of the root there is prepared in Java, one of the mostdangerous of known poisons, acting like nux vomica, in. only a moreintense and violent manner. It is called Tjettek and Upas Radja.1120. S. ligustrina Blume Rumphiai. 68. S. colubrinaof many authors. Lignum colubrinum Caju Ular Humph.ii. 121. t. 38. Malayan Archipelago, where it is called " Caju-Ular, Caju-Nassi, and Caju-Bidara-pait or Caju-Bidara-laut.A tree with the appearance of an Orange tree ;the trunk 12-15 feethigh, and 6 inches or more in diameter. Branches without cirrhi,sometimes spiny at the points. Leaves ovate or elliptical, obtuse,very seldom acute, narrowed to the base, 3-nerved, smooth. Flowersgreenish white in small terminal cymes. Corolla downy outside, rathermore than ^ an inch long. Berries about the size of a green gageplum, globose, yellowish green, 2-8-seeded. This yields the realancient Lignum colubrinum of Timor, once held in the highest estimationas a remedy for paralysis of the lower extremities, and old cachectiddisorders ;but now omitted from modern practice. M. Waitz, aDutch practitionerin Java, is stated by Blume to report most favourablyof its effects, as an anthelmintic, in cases of paralysis of thelower extremities, and in Blennorhcea faucium et laryngis, diseases towhich Europeans are very subject in Java.1121. S. pseudoquina Attg. de. St. Hil.pl. us. bras. p.1. 1. 1.Wooded pasturages in all the eastern part of the province ofMinas Geraes, in the Diamond and Minas Novas districts, theforests of Goyaz and elsewhere in Brazil. (Quina do campo.)A scrubby tree about 12 feet high, with unarmed branches and acorky bark. Leaves short-stalked, ovate, quintuplenerved, villousbeneath, callous at the edge, smooth or nearly so above. Racemesaxillary, erect ; peduncles villous. Flowers greenish-white, sweetscentedlike a lilac, downy externally. Corolla hypocrateriform.Fruit roundish, 7 or 8 lines in diameter, smooth, yellow, shining, containingabout 4 seeds plunged in a sweetish pulp. Considered byAug. de St. Hilaire to be the best febrifuge in Brazil ;with the exceptionof the fruit, which is eaten by children without all danger,theparts, especially the bark, are extremely bitter and rather astringent.It is universally employed instead of Cinchona, and is asserted to befully equal to Peruvian Bark, in the cure of the intermittents of Brazil.Vauquelin analysed the bark and could find in it neither brucine, norstrychnine, nor quinine.OPHIOXYLON.Calyx 5-cleft, permanent. Corolla funnel-shaped; tube long,thickest in the middle ; limb spreading, 5-cleft, oblique. Antherssubsessile, inserted into the middle of the tube. Ovary531 M M 2