MELIACEAE

the mahogany family of flowering plants, of the order Sapindales, comprising 51 genera and about 575 species of trees and (rarely) shrubs, native to tropical and subtropical regions. Most members of the family have large compound leaves, with the leaflets arranged in the form of a feather, and branched flower clusters. The fruit is fleshy and coloured or a leathery capsule. The China tree (Melia azedarach), also called chinaberry, bead tree, and Persian lilac, is an ornamental Asian tree with round yellow fruits, often cultivated in many tropical and warm temperate areas. Trees of the genus Swietenia and Entandophragma, commonly called mahogany, and of the genus Cedrela (especially the cigar-box cedar, C. odorata) are economically important timber trees. The neem, or nim, tree, also called the margosa tree (genus Azadirachta), grown throughout the Old World tropics, notably in India and Southeast Asia, is a source of timber and medicinal oils and resins.