16 abstracts: forestry 



FORESTRY. — Columbian mahogany: Its characteristics and use as a 

 substitute for true mahogany. George B. Sudworth and Clay- 

 ton D. Mell. With a description of the botanical 'characters of 

 Cariniana pyriformis. Henry Pittier. Circular Forest Service, 

 No. 185. 1911. 

 One of the best imitation mahoganies now marketed is the so-called 

 Columbian mahogany Cariniana pyriformis, Miers. It is not true 

 mahogany, but belongs to an entirely different family of trees, the 

 monkey-pod family, Lecythidaceae. The true mahogany, Swietenia 

 mahagoni, Jacq., is a member of the family Meliaceae, to which the 

 well known China tree belongs. Tho the consumption of material 

 passing in the markets as mahogany amounts annually to about 40,000,- 

 000 feet, the cut of real mahogany is only about 18,000,000 feet. How 

 long the wood of Cariniana pyriformis has been used in the United 

 States for mahogany is not known. It has been exported from Carta- 

 gena, Columbia, to Havre, France, for more than thirty years, and 

 there sold in immense cargoes as genuine mahogany. Practically all 

 of the "Columbian mahogany" now marketed is cut at points from 

 100 to 200 miles inland, and shipped from Cartagena. Columbian 

 mahogany and true mahogany are as botanically unlike as an oak and 

 a maple, but a superficial resemblance in the grain and color of their 

 woods has made it possible to substitute the Columbian wood for the 

 other. It seems possible now when the demand for mahogany is greater 

 than the supply that there could be accepted use for such woods as 

 Cariniana pyriformis, acknowledged not to be mahogany, but which 

 are so similar to it in color, grain effects, and working qualities, as to 

 serve for the rarer wood. There should be no objection to calling such 

 woods by their proper names. 



Cariniana pyriformis first became known botanically in 1874, while 

 true mahogany was first described in 1760. Adequate information 

 regarding the botanical characteristics of Cariniana pyriformis and of 

 the structural nature of the wood has never before been published. 



G. B. S. 



