Azedaraca amena.
AZEDARACA AMENA. Tt. 1700. (Melia azedarac, L.) Bead tree, Hoop tree, Pride tree. The old good name of Tournefort, Adanson, Jussien, &c. is much better than Melia of L. being part of Bromelia and Melianthus. Native of Arkansas and Texas. Cultivated from Carolina to Louisiana, often called there Pride of China. Valuable, elegant and medical tree, growing any where from America to Japan, improving sandy soils, bearing transplantation and lopping at any age. Good coarse wood, fine fuel; cattle eat the leaves, hogs and birds the berries. Inner white bark of the roots excellent vermifuge, dose 20 grains in powder or a decoction; but the outer bark is deleterious, purgative, narcotic, and must not be used: in Carolina, they boil the whole root and it thus becomes a violent remedy, causing vomiting and purging, stupor and spasms, like over doses of Spigelia. A cathartic is useful after it to carry off the worms. The berries are also vermifuge, children may be allowed to eat them: they contain a concrete oil, useful for burning, employed in Japan; it is extracted by coction, candles may be made of it; useful in tinea capitis, in the form of an ointment. The ample leaves are bitterish, nauseous, stomachic, discutient and emollient, used in the East and West Indies in decoction, for malignant fevers, and in cataplasms for bites of snakes. The blossoms are fragrant and medical like the leaves.
