Quassia amara

An evergreen shrub or small tree in the Simaroubaceae family, it is native from central Mexico through Central America to tropical South America and parts of the Caribbean. Its compound leaves usually have three to five elliptical leaflets with smooth margins and pointed tips, connected by a winged leaf stalk. Bright red tubular flowers grow in racemes on red stalks. Each flower can develop up to five single-seeded fruits, joined at the base, that darken to black as they mature. Its intensely bitter wood contains quassinoids and is used in botanical insecticides; wood extracts can deter feeding by mahogany shootborer larvae. Photographed in the foothills near Santa Marta, Colombia.