Swietenia mahagoni (L.) Jacq. - syn. Cedrela mahagoni L. - Meliaceae - West Indian mahogany, true mahogany, Westindisches Mahagoni
Endangered deciduous or evergreen tree, up to 35m tall, native to the Caribbean and Florida, also cultivated (China, India, Indonesia eg.); bark scalelike, reddish; leaves alternate ca.35cm long, petiolate, leaflets 8-12, thin, glabrous, ovate to lanceolate, 10-16cm long; axillary thyrses; flowers small, petals greenish white, staminal tube subcylindric, glabrous, anthers 10; capsule brown, ovoid, ca.8 cm in diam., many seeded; seeds apically winged, ca. 7cm including wing. efloras.org
The wood has been used to construct fine furniture for hundreds of years. Properly finished and polished, mahogany has a deep rich red color. Mahogany is used to make musical instruments, especially guitar parts. wikipedia
The highly fragrant flowers open shortly after twilight. They fill the air of the surrounding with a delicate scent, reminiscent of orange flowers slightly modified in direction of Magnolia champaca. Main components of the scent are (E)-ocimene (64.5%) and (Z)-ocimene (16.5%), forming an orange flower accord with indole (0.2%), 2-aminobenzaldehyde (0.3%), and methyl anthranilate (0.6%), twisted in champaca direction with β-ionone (0.02%), β-cyclocitral (0.2%), and safranal (0.03%).
[Scent of a vanishing flora, Roman Kaiser, 2011, 61-62 and 419]
Swietania mahagoni flowers, Manasa Gangothiri, Mysuru, Karnataka, India (2016) © shivaprakash CC BY-SA 4.0 inaturalist.org
Sargent,C.S., The Silva of North America, vol.1 t.43 (1891) [C.E.Faxon]
plantgenera.org






