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Quassia amara
Also called Bitterwood, Surinam Quassia, Quassia
In Singapore: Bitter-wood, Bitterwood, Surinam Quassia, Amargo, 红雀椿 (Grown in Singapore)
Quassia amara is a small, slow-growing, multi-stemmed shrub or tree of Neotropical rainforests, grown for its vivid red flowers and historically for its intensely bitter wood. It is best grown in rich, moisture-retentive soil in part shade to sun, and kept frost-free.
Quassia amara, also known as amargo, bitter-ash, bitterwood, or hombre grande (spanish for "big man") is a species in the genus Quassia, with some botanists treating it as the sole species in the genus. The genus was named by Carl Linnaeus who named it after the first botanist to describe it: the Surinamese freedman Graman Quassi.
Q. amara is used as insecticide, in traditional medicine and as additive in the food industry.
Q. amara is suitable for medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils. It prefers rich soils, that are water retentive. The tree can adapt to different pH-values in soils. It is a frost sensitive plant. Its salt toleration and dry toleration is low. It is classified as a semi-sciophyte with high tolerance to shade conditions but with a requirement of direct exposure to sunlight in order to complete its life cycle, in particular due to its effect on flower and fruit production. An increase in the light conditions increases flower and fruit production although it does not influence seed fertility. Therefore, its natural regeneration appears to be limited by light and interspecific competition with upperstorey forest species.
Quassia amara is an understorey plant in neotropic rainforests and humid sites and mostly abundant in young forests. Therefore Q. amara is native in the tropics of Southern America. More exactly in the Caribbean (Trinidad and Tobago), Central America (Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama), Northern South America (French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru) and in Western South America (Colombia, Argentina). It is found in the Amazon Rainforest at altitudes ranging from sea level up to 900 m (3,000 ft). Q. amara is traditionally harvested in natural forests. There are reports of cultivation in other countries of Central and South America. It inhabits zones of high precipitation (1500–4500 mm per year), and may appear in dry lands or in riparian lands where there is a high humidity permanent. Q. amara is widely planted outside its native range.
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Quassia amara by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
