Swietenia
Sign in to saveSwietenia 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.
Species
GENUS
- KingdomPlantae
- PhylumTracheophyta
- ClassMagnoliopsida
- OrderSapindales
- FamilyMeliaceae
Native toBahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil West-Central, Cayman Is., Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador
Common Name: mahogany
via GBIF · Kew POWO
Article
7 sectionsContents
- Overview
- Species
- Formerly placed here now in Meliaceae
- Uses
- Conservation
- References
- Further reading
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.
==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.