A name for various trees and shrubs, chiefly lauraceous, of the West Indies and tropical America, some of which furnish valuable timber; also the timber itself.
Black Sweetwood, Strychnodaphne (Ocotea) floribunda. Loblolly S., Oreodaphne (Ocotea) Leucoxylon; also Sciadophyllum Jacquini (N.O. Araliaceæ). Lowland, Pepper, or Yellow S., Nectandra sanguinea. Mountain S., Acrodiclidium jamaicense. Rio Grande S., Oreodaphne Leucoxylon. Shrubby S., the genus Amyris (N. O. Rutaceæ or Amyridaceæ) Timber S., Oreodaphne (Nectandra) exaltata, N. leucantha, and Acrodiclidium jamaicense. White S., Nectandra leucantha and N. sanguinea. The name is also given to Croton eleuteria of the W. Indies and Bahamas, which yields cascarilla bark. (See Treas. Bot. and Miller, Plant-n.)
1607. in 3rd Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., 53/2. The soil … covered with good oak, ash, walnut tree, poplar, pine, sweet woods.
1624. Capt. J. Smith, Virginia, 197. Many huge bone-fires of sweet-wood.
c. 1711. Petiver, Gazophyl., viii. 71. Mexican sweet Wood…. This is a pale coloured Wood with brownish Clouds, it has a very fragrant Smell especially if chewed.
1721. Act 8 Geo. I., c. 12 § 2.
1811. Titford, Sk. Hortus Bot. Amer., Expl. Plate vii. p. ii. White Sweetwood (laurus leucoxylon).
1858. Hogg, Veg. Kingd., 623. The wood of O[reodaphne] exaltata is yellow, very hard and durable, and is called Sweetwood, in Jamaica.
1866. Chambers’ Encycl., VIII. 491/1. The compound decoction, formerly known as the Decoction of Sweet Woods.
b. attrib., as sweetwood true; sweetwood bark, a name for cascarilla bark.
1750. G. Hughes, Barbados, 157. The Sweet Wood-tree.
1846. Judge Lees, in Lindley, Veg. Kingd., 279. The plant is scarcely known here [Bahamas] by the name of Cascarilla, but is commonly called Sweet Wood Bark.
