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Swietenia humilis
Also called Honduras Mahogany, Mexican Mahogany, Pacific Mahogany
Swietenia humilis is a small, seasonally deciduous tree in the mahogany family, native to dry forest from Mexico to Central America, valued for its wood and rarely grown in gardens. It is a tree for warm, dry, frost-free climates and is not a common houseplant.
Swietenia humilis is a species of tree in the family Meliaceae. It is one of three species in the genus Swietenia, all three of which are regarded as "genuine mahogany." At 6 metres (20 ft), it is one-fifth the height of S. mahagoni and one-sixth the height of S. macrophylla. Its species name, humilis, means "small" or "dwarfish".
Common names include Pacific Coast mahogany and dwarf mahogany. In the wood trades it is known as Mexican mahogany.
It is found in the drier zones of the western Sierra Madre mountain range from Mexico through Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. The distribution in Guatemala and Honduras bulges eastward from the Pacific Coast nearly to the Atlantic Ocean. In Honduras it also extends from the western Sierra Madre into the abutting northern Nicaraguan cordillera range. The northern half of the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica includes habitat. It is found at altitudes up to 1,200 metres (3,900 ft). Its habitat is both wet and dry deciduous forest, savanna, rough scrub, rocky hillsides and cultivated fields. The species having been over-exploited, surviving trees usually are scattered and isolated individuals. Large specimens are rare.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Swietenia humilis 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.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
