page_title: Simarouba amara
section_title: Taxonomy
hierarchical_section_title: Simarouba amara / Taxonomy
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: Simarouba amara was first described by Jean Baptiste Christophore Fusée Aublet in French Guiana in 1775 and is the type species of the genus Simarouba. In 1790, William Wright described Quassia simarouba, which Auguste Pyrame DeCandolle suggested was the same species as S. amara. However, because S. amara was described as monoecious by Aublet and Q. simarouba was described as dioecious by Wright, they were still regarded as separate species in 1829. By 1874, when the Flora Brasiliensis was published, they were considered synonymous.
  Among the six species of Simarouba, two besides S. amara occur on the continent: S. glauca and S. versicolor. S. amara can be distinguished from the other continental species by having smaller flowers, anthers and fruit, and straight, rather than curved petals. The leaves of Simarouba amara subsp. opaca are not glaucous (a bluish-grey or green colour) on their underside, whereas those of Simarouba amara subsp. typica are.
caption: Illustration of S. amara (as Quassia simarouba) drawn by Adolphus Ypey and published in 1813. Note that the flowers are incorrectly coloured and should be yellow.
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