100 



SILVA OF NOETH AMEIUCA, 



MELIACEvE. 



SWIETENIA MAHAGONI. 



Mahogany. 



. Leaves persistent ; leaflets oyate-lanccolate, folcate, unequally narrowed at the base 



Swietenia Mahagoni, Jacquin, Emim. PL Carih. 20 ; Stirj). 

 Am. 127. — Linnfeus, Spec. ed. 2, 548; Mant. 379. — 

 Cavanilles, Diss. ii. 365, t. 209. — Gfertner, Fruct. ii. 89, 

 t 96. — Lamarck, Diet. iii. 678. — Willdenow, Spec. ii. 

 557. — Titford, Hort. Dot. Am. 64. — Descourtilz, Fl. 

 Med. Antil. ii. 125, t. 99. — De CaudoUe, Frodr. i. 625. — 

 Turpin, Diet. Sci. Nat. Atlas, t. 170. — Tussac, Fl. Antil. 

 iv. 65, t. 23. — Hayne, Arzn. i. t. 19. — A. de Jussieu, 

 Mem. Mus. xix. 248, t. 11. — Don, Gen. Syst. i. 687. f. 

 116. — Spach, Hist. Veg. iii. 164, t. 21. — Macfadyeii, Fl. 

 Jam. 175. — Torrey & Gray, Fl. iV. Avi. i. 242. — Wal- 



pers, Eejy. i. 436. — Xuttall, Sylva, ii. 98, t. 75. — Rich- 

 ard, Fl. Cub. 304. — Schnizlein, Icon. t. 226, f. 1. _ 

 Chapman, Fl. 62. — Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 131. _ 

 BaiUon, Hist. Fl. v. 478, £. 472^76. — Tippel & BoUe- 

 var, Ausland. Cult. Ffl. Atlas, i. t. 2, f. 1. _ Brandis, 

 Forest Fl. Brit. Ind. 70. — C. de CandoUe, Monogr. 

 Phaner. i. 723. — Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. i. 

 183. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. lOtk Census U. S. 

 ix. 33. 



Cedrus Mahogoni, Miller, Diet. No. 2. 



S. macrophylla, King, Hooker Icon. xvi. t. 1550. 



A tree, with a trunk forty or fifty feet in height and sk or eight feet in diameter ahove the swell 

 of the great buttresses which somethnes expand ten or twelve feet from the trunk, and with massive 

 spreading branches. In Florida the Mahogany-tree is not now found more than forty or fifty feet in 

 height, or with a trunk exceeding two feet in diameter, and is destitute of the buttresses which are 

 developed on large individuals in regions more favorable for its growth. The bark of the trunk of the 

 Florida trees is only one half to two thirds of an inch thick, with a dark red-brown surface broken into 

 short broad and rather thick scales. The branchlets during their first season are glabrous, angled, and 

 covered with pale red-brown bark, becoming fighter, or gray faintly tinged with red, and thickly covered 

 with lenticels during the second year. The winter-buds are very short, with broadly ovate minutely 

 apiculate fight red scales. The leaves are four to six inches long, with slender glabrous petioles thick- 

 ened at the base, and are composed of three or four pairs of leaflets. These are ovate-lanceolate, 

 rounded at the base on the upper side, and narrowly wedge-shaped or nearly straight on the lower j 

 they are entire, coriaceous, pale yellow-green or slightly rufous on the under surface, three or four 

 inches long and an Inch or an inch and a half broad, with stout grooved petiolules a quarter of an inch 

 long promment reddish brown midribs, and conspicuous reticulate veins. The flowers appear m July 

 and August, and are produced one or two together at the ends of the branches of the slender panicles 

 which are developed from the axfis of the leaves of the year. The flower-buds are ovate, an eighth of 

 an inch long, or half the length of the slender puberulous pedicels which bear near the middle a pair of 

 mmute acute membranaceous bracts. The calyx is glabrous, cup-shaped, and much shorter than the 

 ovate efiiptical white petals which are an eighth of an inch long and slightly emarglnato at the apex. 

 I he staminal tube, with its acute lobes, is glabrous, as are the ovary and the flesliy disk ; the anthers 

 are efiiptical and shghtly emarginate at the apex. The fruit, which ripens in the autumn or early 

 winter, is long-stalked, four or five inches in length and two and a half inches broad, with thick dark 

 brown valves rugose and pitted on the surface. The axis of the fruit is three or four inches long and 

 an inch or an inch and a half thick, dark red-brown, and marked near the apex ^Aih the small scars left 

 by the tailing of the seeds. These are three quarters of an inch long, almost square, thickened at 

 be base, and nearly a quarter the length of the thick ovate rugose red-brown wing which is rounded or 

 truncate at the apex and graduaUy contracted below 



