A guest from America

Image Courtesy, The Smithsonian Institution, Plant Image Collection.

At the HBR we have a visitor from America who has taken up more or less permanent residence there. Swietenia Mahagoni. She..how can someone whose name rhymes with SWEET be a HE?.... arrived in India in 1795. The word, Mahagony apparently derives from Sanskrit where Maha महा means Great and Gony comes from Guna गुण which means qualities. How a visitor got re-christened and what was her name before she was re-christened remains a mystery. India seems to have welcomed the visitor with our traditional hospitality and she has even entered the herbal pharmacopeadiea.

For a technical description of our guest, click here.

When you are on the premises, it is easier to recognize from the picture below