| 
| 
TRUE MAHOGANY. 15 
past methods of lumbering was in the practice of leaving high 
stumps. With a large tree the stump is one of the most valuable 
parts, but it is seldom utilized. The trunks of mahogany trees are 
disproportionately large at the bases, and native laborers in the 
Tropics cut the stumps high to avoid the extra work of chopping 
through the enlarged buttress, or “ spurs ” which spread out and form 
massive triangular braces often extending from 8 to 10 feet beyond 
the main axis of the trunk (PI. Iii). The trunks are so tapering 
that if a tree is cut above this basal swelling from 200 to 500 board 
feet of the choicest wood may be left in a single stump. The spurs 
themselves also contain uniquely figured wood which would doubtless 
command fancy prices. Needless waste of this sort is being eliminated 
in the case of far less valuable trees than mahogany. 
Operators now exploiting mahogany in Mexican and Central Amer- 
ican forests have pretty generally abandoned the primitive methods 
of felling, hauling, rafting, or loosely floating the timber to shipping 
ports. Instead of snaking or hauling logs to river banks with oxen 
and clumsy conveyances, up-to-date methods of transportation are 
now usually employed. There is also a better systematizing of the 
work. While felling is in progress men are building railroads and 
bridges over which carloads of logs are hauled to the port, where the 
timber is placed on steamers for final shipment. Even carrying logs 
by rail to inland waterways, where they are turned adrift and floated 
down to the ships at tidewater, is done less frequently now, because 
the logs are so bruised and splintered by striking rocks in their 
transit down the river that they have to be hewed and sawed off at the 
ends to remove the battered, useless wood. 
BOTANICAL CHARACTERISTICS. 
The mahogany trees (Swietenta mahagoni Jacq.) and (Swietenia 
macrophylla King.)? are among the most majestic and beautiful 
evergreen trees of tropical America. They are members of the 
family Meliaceae, to which belongs the closely related and well- 
known China tree (Welia azedarach L.), extensively planted fer 
shade in the Southern States. In favorable locations mahogany at- 
1 Jacquin, who described this tree in 1760, named it in honor of the celebrated Baron 
von Swieten, physician to Maria Theresa, Empress of Germany. The specific name 
mahagoni is derived from the original French name mahagon. Botanists follow the orig- 
inal spelling of the word mahagoni, while the Anglicized name is spelled mahogany. 
2-The mahogany of British Honduras and coastal plains of Mexico is a distinct species. 
Zucearini (in Abh. Akad. Muench. II (18381-1836) 355, L. T.-Mexico) described another 
species, Swietenia humilis, which is regarded by the Mexicans as distinct from the other 
two kinds. It is called gateado (Conzatti, C._Flora sinoptica Mexicana. Oaxaca. 1897), 
or flor de venadillo, to distinguish it from the larger tree (Swielenia mahagoni Jacq.), 
which goes under the name of caoba, rosadillo, tozopilotlzontecomatl, tzopilotlzonecomatl, 
zopipoquahuitl, zopilote, or zopilotl. Two other kinds, commonly known as zopilote colo- 
rado or zopilote negro, are recognized by Mexicans, but these are not described botanically 
and can not now be regarded as distinct forms. 
