Alternative names: Not Applicable

Description:
Trees or shrubs, deciduous or evergreen; leaves alternate, pinnate or rarely simple (outside S.Aust.), entire or toothed, petiolate, exstipulate.

Flowers bisexual, regular, in axillary cymose panicles; sepals 3-6, free or fused; petals usually 3-6, usually free, valvate or variously overlapping; filaments fused to form a tube; anthers 3-12, dehiscing longitudinally, 2-locular; ovary superior, 2-5-celled, surrounded at the base by a disk or not, with 1 or 2 axile ovules in each cell; style simple; stigma capitate or discoid.

Fruit a drupe or rarely a capsule; seeds with or without endosperm.

Distribution:  About 50 genera and 1,400 species in warm parts of the world.

Biology: Swietenia mahogani L. is the true mahogany.

Key to Genera:

1. Deciduous; leaves 2- or 3-pinnate	MELIA 1.
1. Evergreen; leaves once pinnate	OWENIA 2.

Author: Prepared by J.P. Jessopt