swietenia

Swietenia is a genus of trees in the chinaberry family, Meliaceae. It occurs natively in the Neotropics, from southern Florida, the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America south to Bolivia. The genus is named for Dutch-Austrian physician Gerard van Swieten (1700-1772). The wood of Swietenia trees is known as mahogany.

The genus was introduced into several Asian countries as a replacement source of mahogany timber around the time it was restricted in its native locations in the late 1990s. Trade in ...