Scientific Name : Swietenia mahagoni (L.) Jacq.
Common Name : West Indies Mahogany, Cuba Mahogany
Chinese Name : 桃花心木, 小葉桃花心木
Family : MELIACEAE
Local distribution status : Exotic species
| Origins | It is native to southern to Central, the Caribbean, and Mexico. It is now widely cultivated in tropical areas such as southern China and Malaysia. |
|---|---|
| Ecology | The wild West Indies Mahogany is currently threatened from rampant logging events and habitat destruction. To avert its wild population from further shrinking, the tree is now regulated by the appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) which requests permit for the export of the timber. |
| Application | The heartwood is dyed in elegant chestnut. It is sturdy, lustrous, durable and ease-of-processing; therefore, it is always considered as an extravagant timber for making ships, furniture and artworks. The timber also serves as the primary material of many majestic European buildings. For instance, the carvings in the Cathedral of Santa María la Menor are made of West Indies Mahogany and have been already preserved for 500 years! |
| Meaning of names |
The generic name Swietenia is named after Gerard van Swieten (1700-1772), who was the personal physician of Maria Theresa of Austria. The specific epithet mahagoni is derived from the Yoruba vernacular M’Oganwo. During the 17th century, many Yoruba people were traded from Nigeria to Jamaica as slaves. When they reached Jamaica, they confused the native West Indies Mahogany with Khaya senegalensis (Senegal mahogany) in their home country, and intuitively referred the trees to M’Oganwo, the vernacular how Senegal mahogany is named in Nigeria. M’Oganwo was later changed into M’Ogani, and people from the America soon spelled the word wrongly into ‘Mahogany’, which has been pervasively used in the global wood trade. Since the tree can be easily discriminated from Swietenia macrophylla (Honduran mahogany) from its rather smaller leaves, hence named as ‘小葉桃花心木’ while ‘小葉’ means small leaves in Chinese. |
| Growing habit | Evergreen or deciduous tree. |
|---|---|
| Height | To 25 m. |
| Roots | Buttressed. |
| Stem | Trunk sturdy, bark slightly red, scale-like. Branchlets grey, smooth. |
| Leaves | Pinnate compound alternate, leaflets 8-12, opposite, arranged spirally on the branches. Blade ovate to lanceolate, base very oblique, margin entire, adaxially dark green, abaxially light green. |
| Flower | Monecious. Panicles axillary. Flowers small, petals 5, greenish white. |
| Fruit | Capsule brown, ovoid, woody. Seeds winged. |
| Flowering period | May to June in Hong Kong. |
| Fruiting period | October to November in Hong Kong. |
Scientific name above is based on Hong Kong Herbarium website :
https://herbarium.gov.hk/en/hk-plant-database/plant-detail/index.html?pType=species&oID=7007
Scientific names from other databases
― Flora of China : Swietenia mahagoni (Linnaeus) Jacquin
― Plants of the World Online : Swietenia mahagoni (L.) Jacq.