Picrasma. Picrasma quassioides.

Picrasma. Picrasma quassioides (Ham.) Benn. (Fam. Simarubaceae.)—The wood of this tree, which grows in the subtropical Himalayas, and resembles closely the Ailanthus in its appearance, has an intensely bitter taste, and has been proposed as a substitute for quassia. W. Dymock and C. J. H. Warden have found in it a crystalline principle which they believe to be quassin, and to exist in the probable proportion of from 0.02 to 0.03 per cent. The same investigators believe that the drug has in it a peculiar alkaloid. (P. J., xx, 1889.) A principle analogous to quassin was isolated by Shimoyamo from the bark of P. eilantoides. (Ap. Ztg., 1892, 439.)

The Dispensatory of the United States of America, 1918, was edited by Joseph P. Remington, Horatio C. Wood and others.