''Swietenia'' is a genus of trees in the

chinaberry ''Melia azedarach'', commonly known as the chinaberry tree, pride of India, bead-tree, Cape lilac, syringa berrytree, Persian lilac, Indian lilac, or white cedar, is a species of deciduous tree in the mahogany family, Meliaceae, that is native ...

family,

Meliaceae Meliaceae, the mahogany family, is a flowering plant family of mostly trees and shrubs (and a few herbaceous plants, mangroves) in the order Sapindales. They are characterised by alternate, usually pinnate leaves without stipules, and by syncarp ...

. It occurs natively in the

Neotropics The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropics, tropical Ecoregion#Terrestrial, terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperat ...

, from southern

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

south to

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

. The genus is named for Dutch-Austrian physician

Gerard van Swieten Gerard van Swieten (7 May 1700 – 18 June 1772) was a Dutch physician who from 1745 was the personal physician of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and transformed the Austrian health service and medical university education. He was the fa ...

(1700-1772). The

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...

of ''Swietenia'' trees is known as

mahogany Mahogany is a straight-grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus ''Swietenia'', indigenous to the AmericasBridgewater, Samuel (2012). ''A Natural History of Belize: Inside the Maya Forest''. Austin: Unive ...

Overview

The genus was introduced into several Asian countries as a replacement source of mahogany timber around the time it was restricted in its native locations in the late 1990s. Trade in Asian grown plantation mahogany is not restricted. Fiji and India are the largest exporters of plantation mahogany and wild mahogany remains commercially unavailable to this day. It is usually taken to consist of three species, geographically separated. They are medium-sized to large trees growing to 20–45 m tall, and up to trunk diameter. The

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

are 10–30 cm long, pinnate, with 3-6 pairs of leaflets, the terminal leaflet absent; each leaflet is 5–15 cm long. The leaves are

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

to semi-

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, which ...

, falling shortly before the new foliage grows. The

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

s are produced in loose

inflorescences An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

, each flower small, with five white to greenish-yellowish petals. The

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

is a pear-shaped five-valved capsule 8–20 cm long, containing numerous winged seeds about 5–9 cm long. The three species are poorly defined biologically, in part because they

hybridize Hybridization (or hybridisation) may refer to: *Hybridization (biology), the process of combining different varieties of organisms to create a hybrid *Orbital hybridization, in chemistry, the mixing of atomic orbitals into new hybrid orbitals *Nu ...

freely when grown in proximity.

Species

Formerly placed here now in Meliaceae

* ''

Chloroxylon swietenia ''Chloroxylon swietenia'' , the Ceylon satinwood or East Indian satinwood, is a tropical hardwood, the sole species in the genus ''Chloroxylon'' (from the Greek χλωρὸν ξύλον, "green wood"). It is native to southern India, Sri Lanka, ...

'' DC. (as ''S. chloroxylon'' Roxb.) * ''

Khaya senegalensis ''Khaya senegalensis'' is a species of tree in the Meliaceae family that is native to Africa. Common names include African mahogany, dry zone mahogany, Gambia mahogany, khaya wood, Senegal mahogany, ''cailcedrat'', ''acajou'', ''djalla'', and '' ...

'' (Desr.) A.Juss. (as ''S. senegalensis'' Desr.) * '' Soymida febrifuga'' (Roxb.) A.Juss. (as ''S. febrifuga'' Roxb.) * ''

Toona sureni ''Toona sureni'' is a species of tree in the mahogany family. It is native to South Asia, Indochina, Malesia, China, and Papua New Guinea. It is commonly known as the suren toon, surian, limpaga, iron redwood or the red cedar (a name also share ...

'' (Blume) Merr. (as ''S. sureni'' Blume)

Uses

The genus is famed as the supplier of

, at first yielded by ''Swietenia mahagoni'', a Caribbean species, which was so extensively used locally and exported that its trade ended by the 1950s. These days almost all mahogany is yielded by the mainland species, ''

Swietenia macrophylla ''Swietenia macrophylla'', commonly known as mahogany, Honduran mahogany, Honduras mahogany, or big-leaf mahogany is a species of plant in the Meliaceae family. It is one of three species that yields genuine mahogany timber (Swietenia), the othe ...

'', although no longer from its native locations due to the restrictions set by

CITES CITES (shorter name for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of interna ...

(see following.) As a timber, both ''Swietenia macrophylla'' and ''Swietenia mahogoni'' are both grown in plantations in several Asian countries such as

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, and

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

and this plantation mahogany timber is the main source of the world's current supply of "genuine mahogany", due to cultivation and trade of it in its native locations being restricted by the Convention On International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (

) since the late 1990s. Trade in Swietenia grown and harvested in these non-native locations is not restricted. Species of this genus are only occasionally plantation-grown in Central America, in spite of the good growing conditions and high price of the wood, due to the ubiquitous presence of the mahogany shoot borer moth (also known as the cedar tip moth), '' Hypsipyla grandella'', which damages the form of the tree by killing the terminal shoot, causing excessive branching. Control requires extensive and frequent spraying with pesticides, rendering the genus relatively uneconomic wherever the shoot borer is present. The fruits of ''Swietenia macrophylla'' are called "sky fruit", because they seem to hang upwards from the tree. The "sky fruit" concentrate is sold as a natural remedy that is said to improve blood circulation and skin. It is also said to have

Viagra Sildenafil, sold under the brand name Viagra, among others, is a medication used to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension. It is unclear if it is effective for treating sexual dysfunction in women. It is taken by ...

-like qualities regarding erectile dysfunction. A somewhat comparable wood is yielded by the related African genus ''

Khaya ''Khaya'' is a genus of five tree species in the mahogany family Meliaceae. The timber of ''Khaya'' is called African mahogany, and is valued as a substitute to American mahogany (of the genus ''Swietenia''). Description The genus is native to ...

''. This is traded as ''African mahogany'' and is from the same family as ''Swietenia''.

Conservation

All species of ''Swietenia'' are

-listed. ''Swietenia'' timber that crosses a border needs its paperwork in order. International environmental organizations such as

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...

Friends of the Earth Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is an international network of environmental organizations in 73 countries. The organization was founded in 1969 in San Francisco by David Brower, Donald Aitken and Gary Soucie after Brower's split with ...

, and

Rainforest Action Network Rainforest Action Network (RAN) is an environmental organization based in San Francisco, California, United States. The organization was founded by Randy "Hurricane" Hayes and Mike Roselle in 1985, and first gained national prominence with a gr ...

have focused on ''Swietenia'' so as to expose illegal traffic in the wood, notably from Brazil.

References

DANIDA factsheet: ''Swietenia humilis'' (pdf file)

DANIDA factsheet: ''Swietenia macrophylla'' (pdf file)

DANIDA factsheet: ''Swietenia mahagoni'' (pdf file)

Floridata factsheet: ''Swietenia mahagoni''

Árboles de Centroamérica: Swietenia humilis (pdf Spanish)

Árboles de Centroamérica: Swietenia macrophylla (pdf Spanish)
{{Taxonbar, from=Q133418 Meliaceae genera