West Indian Mahogany (Swietenia mahagoni)

Description

Swietenia mahagoni, commonly known as American mahogany, Cuban mahogany, small-leaved mahogany, and West Indian mahogany, is a species of Swietenia native to southern Florida in the United States and islands in the Caribbean including the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Haiti. It is the species from which the original mahogany wood was produced. Swietenia mahagoni is listed as "Threatened" in the Preservation of Native Flora of Florida Act. It is the national tree of the Dominican Republic. The earliest recorded use of S. mahagoni was in 1514. This date year was carved into a rough-hewn cross placed in the Catedral de Santa María la Menor in Santo Domingo (now the capital of the Dominican Republic), at the beginning of the building's construction. Completed about 1540, it is the oldest church in the West Indies, and its interior was ornamented with carved mahogany woodwork that is still in almost perfect condition after 500 years in the tropics. Other records refer to the use of mahogany between 1521 and 1540, when Spanish explorers employed the wood for making canoes and for ship repair work in the West Indies. The next significant recorded use was in 1597, regarding repairs for Sir Walter Raleigh's ships in the West Indies. The first documented use in Europe of West Indies mahogany for major building structures prior to 1578 was in Spain. It was specified for use in the construction and interior decoration of one of the grandest royal residences built during the Renaissance in Europe, El Escorial. It seems likely that the merits of mahogany were already well-known and that it was used extensively, since King Philip II of Spain's advisors requisitioned it for making the interior trim work and elaborate furniture of a group of some of the most expensive buildings ever built in Europe: "When in 1578 the king ordered incorruptible [i.e. rot-resistant] and very good woods - cedar, ebony, mahogany, acana, guayacan and iron wood - sent to embellish the Excorial, they had to be brought from a distance by the slaves... Shipment of such woods was made in the summer of 1579 and others followed through a period of ten years at least."