MELIACEAE 227 



MELIACEAE. Mahogany Family. 



About 40 genera and 600 species, trees and shrubs, nearly all 

 tropical. Several are valuable for their wood (e.g., mahogany and 

 "Spanish cedar"), and some are cultivated for ornament. 



MELIA, Linnaeus. 

 Melia Azedarach, L. Chinaberry.* (Umbrella Tree.) 



A small to medium-sized tree, with short more or less crooked 

 trunk and spreading branches, yellowish-brown heart-wood, glossy 

 dark green compound deciduous leaves, fragrant purple flowers in 

 rather large clusters, in March and April, and straw-colored ber- 

 ries which hang on most of the winter. 



A favorite shade-tree in city and country throughout the cotton 

 belt, especially among the negroes ;f planted as far north as Cape 

 Charles, Virginia, and west to Arizona, southern California, and 

 northern Mexico. It grows rapidly and makes a dense shade, and 

 is much less objectionable than Broussouctia and Ailauthus. The 

 preferred form is the var. uuilvacuUfcra (umbrella china), which 

 divides into numerous spreading branches a few feet from the 

 ground. It is remarkably free from insect enemies ; and it is be- 

 lieved by some that grass will grow under a chinaberry tree better 

 than under most other trees. 



The wood, on account of its color, has some uses, but it is 

 not available in large enough pieces or sufficient quantities to be 

 important. The bark has some medicinal properties. The flow- 

 ers yield honey. The berries when full-grown but still hard and 

 green are favorite ammunition for popguns ; and the ripe seeds, 

 which are large and fluted and easily pierced endwise, make beads 

 that can be readily dyed any color. The ripe berries are said to 

 intoxicate birds that feed on them. 



*This is its usual name throughout the South, but northern writers, 

 especially those who have never seen it growing, usually ignore this name 

 entirely and call it "Pride of India," or "China tree." The name "china- 

 berry" does not appear in Small's Flora, nor even in the catalogue part of 

 Mohr's Plant Life of Alabama, which was edited in Washington when he 

 was too old and infirm to look after it properly. Some writers who know 

 it by name only have confused it with Sapindus. which is called "wild china" 

 in the books. In California it is commonly called "umbrella tree." Unedu- 

 cated people often call it "chaneyberry." 



fl have seen negre houses shaded with it even in California. 



