Mahogany is a type of red, reddish-brown wood of three species of tropical hardwood of the genus Swietenia , native to the Americas and part of the pantropical family of chinaberry, Meliaceae.
Video Mahogany
Description
The three species are:
- Honduras or large leafy mahogany ( Swietenia macrophylla ), ranging from Mexico to southern Amazonia in Brazil, the most extensive mahogany species and the only genuinely commercially-grown mahogany species The illegal logging of S. macrophylla, and the devastating environmental impact, led to the placement of species in 2003 in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), for the first time high value and high value trees is listed in Appendix II.
- The West Indian or Cuban mahogany ( Swietenia mahagoni ), native to southern Florida and the Caribbean, was formerly dominant in mahogany trade, but has not been used widely since World War II.
- Swietenia humilis , the small, often twisted mahogany tree is confined to the seasonal dry forest of the Central American Pacific, which is a limited commercial utility. Some botanists believe that S. humilis is just a variant of S. macrophylla .
While the three species of Swietenia are officially classified as "original mahogany", other Meliaceae species with wood use are classified as "true mahogany". (Only Swietenia species can be called "original mahogany.") Some may or may not have the word mahogany in their trade or common name. Some of these mahogany include the African genera Khaya and Entandrophragma; Mahogany or kohekohe New Zealand ( Dysoxylum spectabile ); Chinese Mahogany, Toona sinensis ; Mahoni Indonesia, Toona sureni ; Indian Mahogany, Toona ciliata ; Chinaberry, Melia azedarach ; Pink Mahogany (or Bosse), Guarea ; Chittagong (also known as the Mahogany Indian), Chukrasia velutina ; and Crabwood Carapa guianensis . Some members of the genus Shorea (Meranti, Balau, or Lauan) from the Dipterocarpaceae family are also sometimes sold as Filipino mahogany, although the name is more appropriately applied to other Toona species, Toona kalantas .
Mahogany is a commercially important wood that is valued for its beauty, durability, and color, and is used for panels and for making furniture, boats, musical instruments and other items. The main importer of mahogany is the United States, followed by England; while the largest exporter today is Peru, which surpassed Brazil after it banned mahogany exports in 2001. It is estimated that about 80 or 90 percent of Peruvian mahogans exported to the United States are illegally harvested, with the cost of a illegal logging economy in Peru being conservatively placed at $ 40-70 million USD per year. It is estimated that in 2000, some 57,000 mahogany trees were harvested to supply US furniture trade only.
Mahogany is a national tree of the Dominican Republic and Belize. A mahogany tree with two woodcutters with an ax and oars also appeared on the emblem of the country of Belize, under the national motto, Sub umbra floreo , Latin for "under growing my auspices."
Maps Mahogany
Overview
Distribution
The natural distribution of this species in America is geographically different. S. mahagoni grew up on the islands of West India as far north as the Bahamas, Florida Keys and parts of Florida; S. humilis is grown in dry areas on the Pacific coast of Central America from southwestern Mexico to Costa Rica; S. macrophylla grows in Central America from the Yucatan to the south and to South America, extending to Peru, Bolivia and extreme western Brazil. In the 20th century various botanists sought to further define S. microphylla in South America as a new species, such as S. candollei Pittier and S. tessmannii Harms., but many assume this is false. According to Records and Hess, all the mahogany of North and South America can be considered as one of the botanical species, Swietenia macrophylla King.
History
The mahogany name was originally associated only with islands in the West Indies under British control (French colonists use the term acajou , while in Spanish territory it is called caoba ). The origin of the name is uncertain, but it may be 'm'oganwo' corruption, the name used by the Yoruba and Ibo West Africans to describe the trees of the Khaya genus, which are closely related to Swietenia . When transported to Jamaica as slaves, they gave the same name to the same trees they saw there. Although this interpretation has been debated, no one suggests a more plausible origin. The original Arawak name for the tree is unknown. In 1671 the word mahogany appeared in print for the first time, at John Ogilby's America . Among the botanists and naturalists, however, the tree was regarded as a type of cedar, and in 1759 was classified by Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) as Cedrela mahagoni . The next year was assigned to the new genus by Nicholas Joseph Jacquin (1727-1817), and was named Swietenia mahagoni .
Until the 19th century all mahogany were considered as one species, although varying in quality and character according to soil and climate. In 1836 the German botanist Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini (1797-1848) identified the second species while working on specimens collected on the Pacific coast of Mexico, and named it Swietenia humilis . In 1886, the third species, Swietenia macrophylla , was named by Sir George King (1840-1909) after studying the Honduran mahogany specimens planted at the Botanical Gardens in Calcutta, India. Today, all Swietenia species growing in their original locations are listed by CITES, and are therefore protected. Both Swietenia mahagoni and Swietenia macrophylla were introduced to several Asian countries at the time of restrictions imposed on American mahogany in the late 1990s and both are now successfully planted and harvested in plantations in the country -the state. The original world supply of mahogany today comes from this Asian plantation, mainly from India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and from Fiji, in Oceania. Species
The species of Swietenia nourishes easily when they grow in proximity; hybrids between S. mahagoni and S. macrophylla are widely grown for their wood.
In addition, the US timber trade also markets other species established by the Federal Trade Commission as
History of the American mahogany trade
In the 17th century, buccaneer John Esquemeling records the use of mahogany or cedrela on Hispaniola to make canoes: "The Indians made this canoe without using any iron instrument, by simply burning a tree at the bottom near the root, and afterwards setting fire with industries like that so nothing burns more than what they would... "
Wood first came to the notice of Europeans with the beginning of Spanish colonization in America. A cross at the Cathedral in Santo Domingo, dated 1514, is said to be mahogany, and Phillip II of Spain apparently used wood for the interior of the joinery of the Escorial Palace, beginning in 1584. However, caoba , as it is called Spanish timber, was mainly reserved for shipbuilding, and it declared a monarchy of the kingdom in Havana in 1622. Hence very few of the mahogany growing in the Spanish-held territory found its way to Europe.
After France established a colony in Saint Domingue (now Haiti), some mahogany from the island may find its way to France, where mergers in the port cities of Saint-Malo, Nantes, La Rochelle and Bordeaux use wood to some extent. from about 1700. On British-controlled islands, mainly Jamaica and the Bahamas, mahogany is abundant but not exported in any quantity before 1700.
18th century
While the mahogany trade of the Spanish and French regions of America remained almost dead for much of the 18th century, this is not true for the islands under British control. In 1721, the British Parliament transferred all import duties from timber imported to England from British property in America. This immediately stimulated the West Indian timber trade including, most importantly, mahogany. Imports of mahogany to England (and excluding to Scotland, recorded separately) reached 525 tons per year at 1740, 3,688 tons in 1750, and over 30,000 tons in 1788, the peak year of the 18th century trade.
At the same time, the 1721 Act had the effect of substantially increasing the mahogany from the West Indies to the British colonies of North America. Although originally regarded as woodwork, mahogany quickly became the wood of choice for high quality furniture makers in both the British Isles and 13 North American colonies.
Until the 1760s more than 90 percent of the mahogany imported to Britain came from Jamaica. Some of these are re-exported to the European continent, but are mostly used by British furniture makers. The number of Jamaican mahogany also goes to North American colonies, but most of the wood used in American furniture comes from the Bahamas. This is sometimes called Providence's wood, after the island's main harbor, but more often madera or saturated , which is the Bahamian name for mahogany.
In addition to Jamaica and the Bahamas, all British-controlled islands export several mahogany at various times, but the numbers are not large. The third most significant source is the Black River and adjacent areas on Mosquito Beach (now the Republic of Honduras), from which the number of mahogany was delivered from the 1740s onwards. This mahogany is known as 'Rattan mahogany', after the island of Ruatan, which is the main offshore entrance for British settlers in the area.
At the end of the Seven Years War (1756-63), the mahogany trade began to change significantly. During the occupation of Havana by British troops between August 1762 and July 1763, the number of Cuba or mahogany Havanna was sent to England, and after the city was returned to Spain in 1763, Cuba continued to export in small quantities, mostly to ports in the north. the coast of Jamaica, from where he went to England. However, this mahogany is considered inferior to Jamaican varieties, and trade remained sporadic until the 19th century.
Other new varieties for the market are Hispaniola mahogany, also called the 'Spanish' mahogany and 'St Domingo'. This is the result of the 1766 Free Ports Act, which opens Kingston and other Jamaican ports designated for foreign ships for the first time. The main purpose is to encourage cotton imports from French plantations in Saint Domingue, but high-quality mahogany is also delivered. This was then forwarded to England, where they entered the market in the late 1760s.
In terms of quantity, the most significant new addition to mahogany trade is Honduras mahogany, also called 'baywood', after the Bay of Honduras. British settlers have been active in the southern Yucatan since the early 18th century, despite opposition from Spain, who claimed sovereignty over the whole of Central America.
Their main job is cutting logs, timber that is in great demand in Europe. Their center of activity and the main export point is Belize. Under Article XVII of the Treaty of Paris (1763), the first British cutter was granted the right to cut logs in Yucatan without interruption, within agreed limits. Such is the enthusiasm of cutlers who in recent years the European market is heating up, and the price of logs has collapsed.
However, the mahogany price is still high after the war, so the cutter switches to mahogany cutting. The first Honduran mahogany arrived in Kingston, Jamaica, in November 1763, and the first shipment arrived in England the following year.
In the 1790s, most of the mahogany supplies in Jamaica had been cut, and the market was split between two main sources or mahogany types. Honduran mahogany is relatively inexpensive, abundant, but rarely of the best quality. Hispaniola (also called Spanish or Santo Domingo) mahogany is the wood of choice for high quality work.
The data is lacking, but it is likely that the newly independent United States now receives most of the mahogany from Cuba. In the last quarter of the 18th century France began to use the wider mahogany; they have a high-quality supply of wood from Saint Domingue. The rest of Europe, where the wood is increasingly fashionable, earns most of their wood from England.
Recent history
The French Revolution of 1789 and a war that radically altered the mahogany trade, largely because of the progressive fall of the French and Spanish colonial kingdoms, which allowed British merchants to areas previously closed to them. Saint Domingue became an independent republic of Haiti, and from 1808, Santo Domingo and Cuba were ruled by Spain, both open to British ships for the first time.
From the 1820s mahogany of all these areas were imported to Europe and North America, with the lion's share going to England. In Central America, British loggers move northwest to Mexico and south to Guatemala. Other regions of Central America as far south as Panama are also beginning to be exploited.
The most important new development was the beginning of large-scale logging in Mexico from the 1860s. Most mahogany cut in Tabasco province and exported from a number of ports in Campeche Bay, from Vera Cruz to the east to Campeche and Sisal. By the end of the nineteenth century there was hardly any part of Central America within reach of the coast that was not touched by logging, and the activity also extended to Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and Brazil.
American mahogany trade may have peaked in the last quarter of the 19th century. Figures are not available for all countries, but the UK itself imported over 80,000 tonnes in 1875. This number does not match anymore. From the 1880s, the African mahogany ( Khaya spp.), The related Genus, began to be exported in increasing numbers from West Africa, and by the beginning of the 20th century the market dominated the market.
In 1907 the total mahogany of all sources imported into Europe was 159,830 tons, of which 121,743 tons were from West Africa. At this time the mahogany of Cuba, Haiti, and other West Indian sources became increasingly difficult to obtain in commercial size, and by the end of the 20th century Central America and even the mahogany of South America were heading in the same direction. In 1975 humilis was placed on Appendix II CITES followed by S. mahagoni in 1992. The most abundant species, S. macrophylla , was placed on Appendix III in 1995 and moved to Appendix II in 2003.
Usage
Mahogany has a straight, smooth, and flat grain, and is relatively free of cavities and pockets. The reddish-brown color darkens from time to time, and displays a reddish sheen when polished. It has excellent working ability, and is very durable. Historically, tree thickness allows for wide boards of traditional mahogany species. These properties make it a good wood for craft cabinets and furniture.
Most of the first-quality furniture made in American colonies from the mid-18th century was made of mahogany, when wood was first made available to American artisans. Mahogany is still widely used for fine furnishings; However, the scarcity of Cuban mahogany and the crop of Honduran and Brazilian mahogany has reduced its use.
Mahogany is also rotten wood resistant, making it attractive in ship construction and outdoor decking. This is a tonewood, often used for musical instruments, especially the back, sides and neck of acoustic guitar, electric guitar body, and shell drum because of its ability to produce tones, very warm compared to other commonly used woods such as maple or birch. The guitar featuring mahogany in their construction includes Martin D-18, select Taylor Guitars, Gibson Guitars, HagstrÃÆ'¶m.
Mahogany as an invasive species
In the Philippines, environmentalists are calling for an end to the planting of mahogany due to its negative impact on the environment and wildlife, including the possibility of causing acidification of the soil and no net benefit for wildlife.
References
External links
Media related to Mahogany on Wikimedia Commons
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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