Mahogany Bombs

When the fruit fell from the tree it clanged on the hood of the car with the force of a well hit baseball. It rolled off the grill, falling to the pavement with the sound of the crack of a bat. The rock hard exterior of the fruit had cleaved into four neat quarters, each maintaining a slim connection to the adjacent quarter. Inside, several dozen reddish-brown, winged seeds had separated from the core, while a few had been ejected out upon impact. Today, this is a commonplace occurrence in department store and grocery store parking lots of South Florida where the West Indian Mahogany (Swietenia mahagon) has been planted.

The long sought-after hardwood is native to many islands in the Caribbean as well as extreme South Florida. Over harvesting has reduced the range and abundance of this tropical species, which most likely found its way to Florida millennia ago on the winds or waves churned up by tropical storms or hurricanes.

© Pete Corradino

Shoppers might find it hard to believe that the seemingly ubiquitous tree that has been planted prolifically is recognized as a threatened species. Most wild specimens are found on the hardwood hammocks (aka tree islands) of the Everglades. Mahogany can grow to fifty feet in height with a sixty foot spread. It’s an excellent shade tree and as landscapers recognize the importance of using native species, the mahogany is found  more and more in urban areas.

The adage “never park beneath a coconut tree”, which is understandably a useless sentiment for most of North America, should apply to the West Indian Mahogany as well. The problem though, is the popularity of this species in parking lots and the inability of most people to identify it. The main telltale clue is the brown mahogany fruit growing upright on a tufted stalk. At this time of the year, a good sized tree could have fifty or more. They don’t all fall at once. Some ripen, split and expel their seeds while still attached to the tree. But the rest? Bombs away. 

Fantastic Fragrance - The Southern Magnolia

On a muggy, May afternoon in Hillsborough River State Park in Thonotosassa, FL, I find myself wiping rivulets of sweat off my face. As we amble down the trail, I swat away an entourage of mosquitoes that gravitate towards me and retreat with every swing of an arm. There is a hypnotic fragrance that wafts through the woods on the slightest of breezes. I raise my shoulder to wipe away the sweat. I flail my arm at the marauding blood suckers. The motions become routine. But the sweet aroma that undulates on unseen air currents leads me by my nose to undiscovered treasures.

To describe a fragrance is as easy for me as tasting music. No description could do it justice. It’s a pleasant, sugared scent that distracts me from my sweat-soaked clothing, and blood-spattered, mosquito bitten skin. As we make our way through a forest of Bald Cypress and Live Oaks we arrive at a clearing spiked with half-a-dozen, 60 foot tall trees adorned with massive white blooms. There is no mistaking the identity of the Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora).

Magnolias are named after French botanist Pierre Magnol and the species name “grandiflora” refers to the head-sized flowers they produce. The foot-wide bloom is decorated with a pineapple shaped structure that includes the female carpels and the male stamens at the base. Magnolias have been around since before the rise of bees and the trees were originally pollinated by beetles. The flowers evolved tough carpels to prevent damage from beetles crawling around on their surface. Today, bees and other flying pollinators assist beetles in propagating the species. Eventually the petals will fall away, the sweet scent will dissipate and by late summer the fruit will mature and spit out dozens of crimson, half-inch seeds.

We can’t linger long. The mosquitoes have caught up and the sun is blazing. I break the hypnotic hold the tree has on my olfactory senses and ponder the notion that I can’t remember what it smells like already. I just know when I smell it again I’ll like it.