vismia

[Named after M. de Visme, a merchant in Lisbon.] Bot.: A genus of Elodese. Trees or shrubs, with quadrangular branches, opposite entire leaves, sometimes with glandular dots, and terminal cymes of yellow or greenish flowers. Sepals five or four; petals as many, usually villous on the inside, and with black glandular dots; stamens many, in five bundles; fruit a berry, with five cells and many seeds. Known species more than twenty, the majority from tropical America, the rest from tropical Africa. Vismia guianensis is a small Mexican and Guianan tree, about eight feet high, with ovate lanceolate acuminate leaves, dilated at the base, smooth above, rufous beneath. The bark, leaves, chin, bench; go, gem; thin, this; when dry, becomes hard and resembles gamboge. It is given in medicine as a purgative. V. micran tha and V. laccifera also yield a drastic gum-resin like gamboge. [ELODEA, 2.]