Melia azedarach
Content
Description
Tree to 40 m, ± deciduous; bole fluted below when old, to 60(–180, Elmer) cm diam.
Bark grey-brown, smooth, lenticellate becoming lightly fissured or scaling with age; inner bark yellowish; sapwood whitish, soft; heartwood rusty brown.
Leaves 15–80 cm, with 3–7 pairs of lateral rachides, each with 3–7 pairs of leaflets, the most proximal of which sometimes replaced with short rachides with a few pairs of leaflets, ± weakly pubescent but usually subglabrous; peti- ole 8–30 cm, to 6 mm diam., terete, lenticellate, swollen at base; lateral rachides weakly ascendant, to 25 cm long, articulated with articulated main rachis and weakly swollen there.
Petals 6–10 by c. 2 mm, narrowly oblong, white to lilac or bluish, stellate- and simple-hairy without, sometimes simple-hairy within, mid-vein conspicuous.
Staminal tube subglabrous without, ± densely simple hairy within, lobes bifid, or 4-fid, sometimes irregularly so; anthers c. 1.5 mm long, apicu- late, ± hairy, inserted opposite lobes.
Seed c. 3.5 by 1.6 mm, oblong, smooth, brown.
Distribution
from India and Nepal, Sri Lanka and tropical China, south and east through Malesia: Sumatra, Java, Philippines (Luzon, Negros, Mindanao), Lesser Sunda Islands (Flores, Timor, Wetar), New Guinea, to tropical Australia and the Solomon Islands present
Wild trees are known from India and Nepal, Sri Lanka and tropical China, south and east through Malesia: Sumatra, Java, Philippines (Luzon, Negros, Mindanao), Lesser Sunda Islands (Flores, Timor, Wetar), New Guinea, to tropical Australia and the Solomon Islands
Taxonomy
The species is a complex of wild and cultivated forms discussed by Mabberley of which the following is a condensation.
Forms of this widespread species have been cultivated for over 2500 years and some of them look very different from the statuesque wild trees with pale flowers and mealy shoots. Plants resembling the wild forms were cultivated at Calcutta in the early 1800s and are grown under ‘stove’ conditions in Europe; they are rarely planted in the tropics, though they have been long established at Bogor in Java.
By contrast, the widespread Persian Lilac is grown all over the warmer parts of the world and some forms of it can even be grown outside in the British Isles. Such forms are deciduous, almost glabrous and have rather large bluish or lilac, rarely white flowers. The plant was apparently introduced to Malesia by Europeans and, although now wide- spread, was not mentioned by Rumphius for example. The hardy forms reached Europe via the Persians and Arabs, who knew its medicinal properties but the species seems to have been domesticated long ago in India, where it is still grown for its flowers which are widely used in thank-offerings. The Arabs knew it by the time of Avicenna (sowing methods being discussed in Ibn Bassal’s Book of Agriculture of c. 1080) and it was first mentioned in a European text by l’Obel (1576). About this time it seems to have been cultivated in Europe, where, particularly in the Mediterranean, it was soon widely planted and even naturalized. That the dried fruit had a natural channel through it, preadapted the tree for use in rosary-making, such that in Spain it became known as Arbor sancta.
There was at least one more major introduction to Europe, from Sri Lanka, of these Indian cultivars. That form, named by Linné var. sempervirens, was being grown in the Netherlands at the end of the 1600s, and was noted for its being more evergreen and more tender than the old Persian Lilac. This seems to have been the form introduced into the West Indies, but it is very close to the original and it is not absolutely clear that it is the West Indian plant. Nevertheless the West Indian plant was taken thence to Africa and reintroduced to Europe as an African plant!
Forms of these Indian cultivars with precocious flowering were selected and named as were ones with white flowers of deeply lobed leaflets some of which seem to have arisen in Java in the nineteenth century. Meantime, the Chinese seem to have been using the tree for patten making in Kwangtung and to have selected certain forms with large fruits and leaflets, with rather entire margins. These, like so many Chinese garden plants, were taken to Japan, where they were known as Tô sendan, that is, Chinese Melia, but, again like many Chinese garden plants, Europeans named them ‘japonica’ (twice!). By the 1860s, these Chinese cultivars were well-established in cultivation in Europe and also in tropical botanic gardens, notably Bogor. Because these forms are different from the Indian ones and yet both seem to have been derived from populations of the wild tree, the synonyms relating to the two groups of cultivars are set out below. The very nature of these cultivars denies one hundred percent ‘pigeon-holing’ of specimens, however.
Forms of this widespread species have been cultivated for over 2500 years and some of them look very different from the statuesque wild trees with pale flowers and mealy shoots. Plants resembling the wild forms were cultivated at Calcutta in the early 1800s and are grown under ‘stove’ conditions in Europe; they are rarely planted in the tropics, though they have been long established at Bogor in Java.
By contrast, the widespread Persian Lilac is grown all over the warmer parts of the world and some forms of it can even be grown outside in the British Isles. Such forms are deciduous, almost glabrous and have rather large bluish or lilac, rarely white flowers. The plant was apparently introduced to Malesia by Europeans and, although now wide- spread, was not mentioned by Rumphius for example. The hardy forms reached Europe via the Persians and Arabs, who knew its medicinal properties but the species seems to have been domesticated long ago in India, where it is still grown for its flowers which are widely used in thank-offerings. The Arabs knew it by the time of Avicenna (sowing methods being discussed in Ibn Bassal’s Book of Agriculture of c. 1080) and it was first mentioned in a European text by l’Obel (1576). About this time it seems to have been cultivated in Europe, where, particularly in the Mediterranean, it was soon widely planted and even naturalized. That the dried fruit had a natural channel through it, preadapted the tree for use in rosary-making, such that in Spain it became known as Arbor sancta.
There was at least one more major introduction to Europe, from Sri Lanka, of these Indian cultivars. That form, named by Linné var. sempervirens, was being grown in the Netherlands at the end of the 1600s, and was noted for its being more evergreen and more tender than the old Persian Lilac. This seems to have been the form introduced into the West Indies, but it is very close to the original and it is not absolutely clear that it is the West Indian plant. Nevertheless the West Indian plant was taken thence to Africa and reintroduced to Europe as an African plant!
Forms of these Indian cultivars with precocious flowering were selected and named as were ones with white flowers of deeply lobed leaflets some of which seem to have arisen in Java in the nineteenth century. Meantime, the Chinese seem to have been using the tree for patten making in Kwangtung and to have selected certain forms with large fruits and leaflets, with rather entire margins. These, like so many Chinese garden plants, were taken to Japan, where they were known as Tô sendan, that is, Chinese Melia, but, again like many Chinese garden plants, Europeans named them ‘japonica’ (twice!). By the 1860s, these Chinese cultivars were well-established in cultivation in Europe and also in tropical botanic gardens, notably Bogor. Because these forms are different from the Indian ones and yet both seem to have been derived from populations of the wild tree, the synonyms relating to the two groups of cultivars are set out below. The very nature of these cultivars denies one hundred percent ‘pigeon-holing’ of specimens, however.
Citation
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