28 Timehrr. 
writes : “IT am n sending by same mail, two specimens No. 2643 Swietenia 
mahogani Jacq. and No. 2788 Khaya senegalensis, A. Juss. The former is a 
piece “of the sample sent me by Professor John Gifford, of Cocoanut Grove, 
Florida, who also sent me some of the leaves. The latter I received from the 
Imperial Institute. Ido not know the name of the collector but it was the 
Government Botanist of Southern Nigeria. Its local name is ‘Ogwango. I 
have had the same wood from Lagos under the name ‘ Oganwo’ and another 
called ‘ Bele’ and properly authenticated as Khaya from the Sudan.” The 
tree of S. Mahogani from which the specimen referred to was taken was planted, 
cut down and botanically identified by Professor Gifford so that there is no 
doubt of authenicity or of the correspondence of timber and _ botanical 
specimens. 
With these authentic specimens in hand it is possible to determine the 
genuineness of timbers pretending to the name of mahogany, though it must 
be observed that other species of the order Meliaceae have a good claim to be 
known as such. An interesting point arises here. Our grandfathers’ este m for 
the wood was mainly on account of its “‘ warm ” colour, while most of the old 
furniture mahoganies I have met with are of a shade that inclines rather to 
dark and cold and it has become customary in the trade to stain furniture made 
of so-called mahogany to this very dark shade in which all warmth is entirely 
lost, whatever its native colour may have been. Now the hand specimen of 
S. mahogani in my possession has exactly the tone which with clear polishes 
would show to perfection the warmth which was in former days so highly prized, 
and which we may mention in passing is a feature of some well-grown varieties 
of our crabwood when properly finished and polished. In re-working some old 
nearly black mahogany however I have found that the warm tone re-appears 
under the plane and, when repolished, the pristine beauty of grain and colour 
establishes the good taste of our ancestors, and condemns the black stain as a 
reprehensible fashion where really fine figured wood is in question. 
True mahogany then is a warm red wood, tending to orange rather than 
brown, fine in grain and moderately hard, some pieces beautifully figured and 
susceptible of a sub-satiny finish under the plane. This description applies to 
S. mahogani. The African species, K. senegalensis, is opener in grain, lighter, 
nearer in colour and grain to good specimens of our colony cedar. Indeed I have 
before me some pieces of the latter which placed alongside of Mr. Stone's 
specimen of Khaya would lead one at a cursory examination to declare the two 
woods identical. 
More technically the difference between true American and true African 
mahogany is chiefly shown in the characters of the rays. Mr. Stone relies, 
I think with good reason, on the tangential section to separate the species. 
‘‘ In Swietenia,” he says in the letter above quoted, “ the rays appear crowded, 
pushing aside the fibres of the wood like packing needles thrust through a bundle 
of tow. In Khaya they are linear and leave the fibres approximately parallel 
and while about the same width as those of Swietenia they are about three times 
the height. Khaya has two kinds of rays . . . the small rays are but few and 
will require the microscope and careful search. As in the Oak the cells of the 
large rays are filled with starch while those of the small ones are empty.” In 
