THE MAHOGANY FAMILY 



MELIACE^ Ventenat 



ELIACEiE are almost wholly tropical in distribution. They are mostly 

 composed of trees and shrubs classified into about 50 genera with some 

 700 species. The leaves are alternate, pinnate, or pinnately com- 

 pound, without stipules, and not punctate with pellucid dots. The 

 flowers are regular, perfect, polygamous or dioecious, and borne in panicles; the 

 calyx is composed of from 3 to 6 sepals, the corolla of the same number of separate 

 or slightly united petals, and there are 8 or 10 stamens in the staminate and per- 

 fect flowers, their filaments united into a tube; in the pistillate flowers the ovary 

 is free from the calyx (superior), 3-celled to 5-celled, with from 2 to many ovules 

 in each cavity. The fruit is a drupe, capsule or berry in the different genera. 



Next to Mahogany the most important economic member of this family is 

 the so-called Spanish cedar, also known as West Indian cedar and Cigar box 

 wood ; it is the West Indian and Central American tree Cedrela odorata Linnaeus. 

 The bark of this tree is also used medicinally in its native countries. The barks 

 of many other members of the family are used medicinally principally as cathar- 

 tics and anthelmintics, but Azedarach, the bark of the China tree, is the only one 

 usually found in the drug trade of Europe and America. 

 Two genera are represented in our flora: 



Ovules 2 in each cavity of the ovan^; fruit a drupe; seeds wingless. i. Melia. 



Ovules many in each cavity of the ovar}'; fruit a large woody capsule; seeds 

 winged. 2. Swietenia. 



I. CHINA TREE 



GENUS MELIA LINN^US 

 Species Melia Azedarach Linnaeus 



^ELIA, of which this tree is the generic type (a Greek name of the Ash), 

 includes about 25 kinds of Asiatic trees, having compound leaves 

 and perfect, white or purple flowers in large axillar}' panicles. The 

 5 or 6 sepals are imbricated; the disk of the flower is ring-like; the 

 petals are separate, twisted and narrow; the tube of stamens is nearly cylindric, 

 expanded and lo-lobed or 12-lobed at the top, bearing 10 or 12 anthers; each 

 lobe of this stamen-tube is 2-cleft or 3-clcft ; the ovar)' is 3-cellcd to 6-cellcd and 

 the stigma 3-lobed to 6-lobed. The fruits are numerous small drupes. 



The China tree, or Pride of India, native of India or China, has become thor- 



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