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Mahogany

Swietenia

Mahogany
Photo: J.M.Garg, CC BY-SA 3.0

Swietenia is a genus of large tropical trees in the family Meliaceae, native to the Neotropics, best known as the source of prized mahogany wood. Commonly grown members are S. macrophylla and S. mahagoni, which are grown outdoors in warm climates rather than as houseplants.

Family
Meliaceae (Meli family)
Grows as
Tree
Light
Full sun
Water
Water deeply during dry spells while young, then allow the soil to dry between waterings.
Soil
Deep, well-drained loam or sandy loam.
Temperature
20–32 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Moderate

About

Swietenia is a genus of trees in the chinaberry family, Meliaceae. It occurs natively in the Neotropics, from southern Florida, the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America south to Bolivia. The genus is named for Dutch-Austrian physician Gerard van Swieten (1700–1772). The wood of Swietenia trees is known as mahogany.

Uses

The genus is famed as the supplier of mahogany, 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, although no longer from its native locations due to the restrictions set by CITES.

Other Swietenia plants

Pacific Coast mahogany · Honduras mahogany · West Indian mahogany

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Swietenia by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

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