Swietenia mahagoni (L.) Jacq.Family: Meliaceae
Chinese: 桃花心木
Finnish: Karibianaitomahonki
French: Mahogani de Saint-Domingue
Indinesian: Mahoni
Malayalam: ചെറിയ മഹാഗണി
Persian: درخت ماهون
Spanish: Caoba
Tamil: Ciminukku
Vietnamese: Dái_ngựa_(cây)
Description: Trees to 25 m tall; trunk to 4 m across; bark deeply fissured. Leaves alternate, to 18 cm long; leaflets ca 5 pairs, oblong-lanceolate, falcate, oblique at base, entire at margin, acuminate at apex, coriaceous, glabrous above, puberulous beneath; petioles to 3 cm long; petiolules 5-6 mm long. Panicles to 10 cm long; peduncles to 4 cm long. Flowers ca 7 mm across. Calyx lobes 5, ovate, ca 2 mm long, pubescent. Petals 5, obovate, hooded, ca 5 x 2 mm, spreading, pubescent outside, cream-yellow. Staminal tube cupular, ca 3 mm long, glabrous, 10-lobed; anthers 10, included, alternating with lobes. Ovary 5-loculed; style narrow, tapering, to 2 mm long. Capsules oblong, ca 7 x 5.5 cm; seeds ca 6 x 1.5 cm, winged.
Seed powder antidiabetic; paste from the seeds applied for leucorrhea. Bark aphrodisiac, bitter, astringent, febrifuge, antiseptic; a decoction applied to wounds. Drinking a large quantity of the boiled bark decoction is said to induce hemorrhage and thus abortion. Magic, love potion, the leafy twig. [CRC World Dictionary of Medicinal and Poisonous Plants]
Argentinians take sweetened bark tea as febrifuge and orexigenic. Bahamans take bark or root infusion as tonic.
Caicos Islanders take bark or root infusion, with wood ofZanthoxylum, for gonorrhea. Cubans apply juice from young shoots to stop bleeding and heal wounds. Cubans take the astringent bark decoction for catarrh, convulsions, and tetanus. Haitians apply bark infusion topically as antiseptic and astringent, taking the bark and leaf tea for diarrhea, dysentery, and hemorrhage, and large doses of bark decoction as abortifacient, smaller doses for toothache. Haitians steep bark in rum 3–4 days as aphrodisiac tonic. Haitians take leaf decoction with salt for nervous disorders.
Haitians take seed tea for chest pain. Haitians use alcoholic bark, leaf, and root maceration for malaria, the alcoholic bark tincture for anemia, anorexia, and debility. Haitians use aqueous bark maceration or decoction, with or without salt, for amenorrhea, anemia, diarrhea, dysentery, and fever Jamaicans take the bark decoction for diarrhea and fever . [Duke’s Handbook of Medicinal Plants of Latin America]
USES: Stem: Decoction of bark used to dress wounds from firearms. Bark is astringent, antiseptic
and febrifuge. Bark infusion for dysentery. [Medicinal Plants of the Guianas (Guyana, Surinam, French Guiana) ]
121 Published articles of Swietenia mahagoni
