Simarouba amara is a species of tree in the family Simaroubaceae, found in the rainforests and savannahs of South and Central America and the Caribbean. It was first described by Aubl. in French Guiana in 1775 and is one of six species of Simarouba. The tree is evergreen, but produces a new set of leaves once a year. It requires relatively high levels of light to grow and grows rapidly in these conditions, but lives for a relatively short time. In Panama, it flowers during the dry season in February and March, whereas in Costa Rica, where there is no dry season it flowers later, between March and July. As the species is dioecious, the trees are either male or female and only produce male or female flowers. The small yellow flowers are thought to be pollinated by insects, the resulting fruits are dispersed by animals including monkeys, birds and fruit-eating bats and the seeds are also dispersed by leaf cutter ants.
Simarouba amara has been studied extensively by scientists in an attempt to understand the tree and also to gain a better understanding of the ecology of the rainforest in general. Many of these studies were conducted on Barro Colorado Island in Panama or at La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica. Of particular interest is how it competes with other species and with individuals of the same species at different stages in its life cycle. The seedlings are normally limited by the amount of light and nutrients found where they are growing and the saplings are considered relatively light demanding compared to other species. Young individuals are more likely to survive when they grow further away from their parents and when there are few other individuals growing near to them, which may be due to them being able to escape diseases. Plant physiologists have investigated how the leaves of the tree differ depending on their location in the forest canopy finding they are thicker in the canopy and thinner in the understory. They have also measured how the water potential of their leaves changes and when their stomata open and close during the day; the findings suggest that rather than closing their stomata to control water loss, it is controlled by the leaf area instead. Population geneticists have examined the way in which its genes vary, at both the local scale and across its range using microsatellites. It is genetically diverse, indicating gene flow occurs between populations and seeds can be dispersed up to 1 km. The leaves of S. amara are eaten by several species of caterpillar, particularly those in the genus Atteva. Several species of termite and ants live on or around the tree and lianas and epiphytes grow on the tree.
The bark of S. amara has been used by people in its range to treat dysentery and diarrhea, as well as other diseases, and was also exported to Europe in the eighteenth century to treat these illnesses. A number of compounds have since been isolated from the bark and have been shown to have antimicrobial effects. Local people use the wood of the tree for various purposes and it is also grown in plantations and harvested for its timber, some of which is exported.
^Christophore Fusée Aublet, Jean Baptiste (1775). Histoire des plantes de la Guiane Françoise. London and Paris: Pierre-François Didot. pp. 860–861.
^Cronquist, A. (1944). "Studies in the Simaroubaceae-II. The Genus Simarouba". Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club. 71 (3): 226–234. doi:10.2307/2481702. JSTOR 2481702.
^Herbert Stone (1904). "The timbers of Commerce and their identification". Nature. 71 (1837): 247. Bibcode:1905Natur..71..247.. doi:10.1038/071247b0. hdl:2027/gri.ark:/13960/t18m0qr47. S2CID 34933195. Retrieved 13 January 2011.
Simaroubaamara is a species of tree in the family Simaroubaceae, found in the rainforests and savannahs of South and Central America and the Caribbean...
or "bitter damson" was also formerly applied in Jamaica to the tree Simaroubaamara. The name damson comes from Middle English damascene, damesene, damasin...
Quassia amara Picrasma excelsa Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI).; IUCN SSC Global Tree Specialist Group (2019). "Simarouba glauca"....
Jamaica, Haiti and Martinique. The larvae feed only on new shoots of Simaroubaamara. There are records for Ailanthus altissima in Argentina (Berg 1880)...
only from Costa Rica and Panama. The larvae feed on shoot tips of Simaroubaamara saplings and adult trees. It is more abundant than Atteva pustulella...
on the sap of plants, mainly from some trees as Hymenaea courbaril, Simaroubaamara and Zanthoxylum species. It will generally remain camouflaged on a...
of its original larval host plants: the paradise tree (Simarouba glauca) and Simaroubaamara. Another tree called tree-of-heaven, (Ailanthus altissima)...
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Quassia amara, also known as amargo, bitter-ash, bitter-wood, or hombre grande (spanish for big man) is a species in the genus Quassia, with some botanists...
Guyana, México and Suriname. A host plant of this species is the tree Simaroubaamara. L. lanata was witnessed gathering in a group on this tree at a locality...
process on their heads. They feed on the sap of trees, most commonly Simaroubaamara, and they excrete honeydew out of their anuses. Several other animals...
Stryphnodendron microstachyum, Vismia macrophylla and the pioneer tree species Simaroubaamara, Tapirira guianensis and Jacaranda copaia in former clearings, and...
abound in the park, among them Hura crepitans, Cedrelinga cateniformis, Simaroubaamara, Macrolobium acaciaefolium and Ceiba pentandra. Climate for Loreto...
Caribbean, e.g. Picrasma excelsa Simarouba glauca, native to Florida, the Caribbean, and Central America Quassia amara, native to Central and South America...
(Pierre) Engl., Pierreodendron Engl., Samadera Gaertn., Simaba Aubl. and Simarouba Aubl. . In 2007, DNA sequencing, and phylogenetic analyses was carried...
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