Name for various trees and shrubs having yellow wood, or for the wood of any of these.
Some furnish yellow dyes, as Maclura tinctoria (FUSTIC) of the W. Indies and S. America, and the N. American M. aurantiaca (Osage ORANGE), Cladrastis tinctoria (American or Kentucky Y.), and Xanthorrhiza apiifolia (Shrub YELLOW-ROOT); others are used for ornamental purposes, as species of Flindersia (White TEAK) of Queensland and Rhus rhodanthema of New South Wales (both called Light Y.), Podocarpus Thunbergii (Cape Y.) of S. Africa, and Chloroxylon Swietenia (SATIN-wood) of the E. Indies; others as timber or for other purposes, as Schæfferia frutescens of Florida, Podocarpus elongata (Natal Y.) and P. pruinosa (Bastard Y.) of S. Africa, P. latifolia of the E. Indies, and Xanthoxylon Clava-Herculis and other species (Prickly Y.) of the W. Indies.
1666. J. Davies, Hist. Caribbee Isles, 43. The Island of S. Croix is the most famous of all the Islands for its abundance in rare and precious Trees. There is one very much esteem’d for its usefulness in Dying: It is called the Yellow-wood from its colour.
1716. Petiveriana, I. 243. Prickley Yellow wood.
1752. Rec. Elgin (New Spald. Club, 1903), I. 465. Ilk cwt. brown Brisiell wood, sweet wood, yellow wood or fustic 8d.
1812. Brackenridge, Views Louisiana (1814), 59. One very beautiful [forest tree], bois jaune, or yellow wood: by some called the mock orange.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 122. Oxleya xanthoxyla, a large tree, is the Yellow-wood of New South Wales.
1834. Pringle, Afr. Sk., vi. 219. A tree greatly resembling the cedar in its external aspect,… termed … geelhout, or yellow-wood (taxus elongata).
1868. Rep. U.S. Comm. Agric. (1869), 199. Yellow-wood (Cladrastis tinctoria) is a western tree.
1875. Ure’s Dict. Arts, II. 527, Fustic, or Yellow Wood. The old fustic of the English dyer. It is the wood of the Morus tinctoria.
1887. Miss E. E. Money, Dutch Maiden, II. 85. The tree, a huge yellow-wood, stood at the edge of the bush.
