quassia
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quas·sia
(kwŏsh'ə) 
n.
n.
- A tropical American shrub or small tree (Quassia amara) having bright scarlet flowers and yielding a valuable, lustrous, fine-grained, yellowish-white wood.
- The wood of this plant.
- A bitter substance obtained from the wood of this plant, used in medicine and as an insecticide.
[New Latin, after Graman Quassi, an 18th-century Surinamese.]
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quassia
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quassia
quassia (kwŏsh'ə), name for several tropical trees and for a bitter extract from their bark. The extract containing complex terpenoid compounds called quassinoids is used medicinally as a bitter tonic and a pinworm remedy; it is also used in insecticides, e.g., in flypaper and against aphids. Surinam quassia comes from the tree Quassia amara of N Brazil and surrounding regions; Jamaica quassia comes from Picrasma excelsa of the West Indies. Some Old World quassia species are similarly used. The trees are related to the ailanthus. Quassia is classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Sapindales, family Simaroubaceae.
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Source: Picrasma excelsa (Sw.) Planch. and Quassia amara L. (Family Simaroubaceae).
Common/vernacular names: Jamaican quassia (P. excelsa); Surinam quassia (Q. amara); quassia wood, bitterwood.
Picrasma excelsa is a tree with a trunk diameter of 0.5–1 m; up to about 25 m high; native to the West Indies and growing in Jamaica and other Caribbean Islands. Quassia amara is a shrub or small tree up to about 3 m high; native to northern South America and growing in Surinam, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and other tropical American countries. Part used is the wood.
| Pharmacology & Biological Activities of Quillaia | |
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Quassia
| Quassia | |
|---|---|
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| Quassia amara | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Rosids |
| Order: | Sapindales |
| Family: | Simaroubaceae |
| Genus: | Quassia L. |
| Species | |
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2008) |
Quassia (
/ˈkwɒʃə/ or /ˈkwɒʃiə/) is a flora genus in the family Simaroubaceae. Its size is disputed; some botanists treat it as consisting of only one species, Quassia amara from tropical South America, while others treat it in a wide circumscription as a pantropical genus containing up to 40 species of trees and shrubs. The genus was named after a former slave from Surinam, Graman Quassi in the eighteenth century. He discovered the medicinal properties of the of the bark of Quassia amara.
Broader treatments of the genus include the following and other species:
- Quassia africana
- Quassia amara
- Quassia bidwillii
- Quassia indica
- Quassia sp. 'Moonee Creek' - Australia
- Quassia sp. 'Mount Nardi' - Australia
- Quassia undulata
It is the source of the "quassinoids" quassin and neo-quassin.[1]
References
- ^ Mishra K, Chakraborty D, Pal A, Dey N (April 2010). "Plasmodium falciparum: in vitro interaction of quassin and neo-quassin with artesunate, a hemisuccinate derivative of artemisinin". Exp. Parasitol. 124 (4): 421–7. doi:10.1016/j.exppara.2009.12.007. PMID 20036657. http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0014-4894(09)00343-9.
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