Page 166 - Pharmacognosy-I (02-06-06-102)

Quassia Wood

Bitter wood, Khashab Murr.

Botanical origin: Quassia is the dried stem wood of Picrasma

excelsa or Aeschrion excelsa Fam. Simarubaceae known in commerce
as Jamaica quassia.

Macroscopic characters :

- Jamaica Quassia occur in the form of logs, billets, chips, shavings or
raspings varying in size,
- yellowish white or bright yellow in colour sometimes with light or
dark-grey patches ,
- Annual rings are absent.
- The wood is odourless and has an intensely bitter taste

Microscopic characters :

The wood is composed of vessels, wood fibres, wood parenchyma and
medullary rays.
A T.S. of quassia shows :
1- Vessels are large up to 200 microns in diameter, isolated or in groups

of 2-6, with numerous closely arranged, minute oval bordered pits.
2- Wood fibres, constituting the main bulk of the wood, with moderately

thin walls, linear oblique simple pits and tapering pointed ends.
3- Wood parenchyma, metatracheal, in narrow tangential bands of 2-4

cells thick; paratracheal in one to several layers around the parts of the
vessels not adjacent to medullary rays; some of them containing
prisms of calcium oxalate.

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