Melia
Sponsor
Kindly sponsored by
Peter Hoffmann
Credits
David J. Mabberley (2025)
Recommended citation
Mabberley, D.J. (2025), 'Melia' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Family
- Meliaceae
Common Names
- Persian Lilac
- White Cedar
The three or four species of Melia are deciduous to semi-evergreen trees, occasionally flowering precociously as shrublets, with bipinnate leaves in spirals and with opposite to subopposite variously toothed leaflets and (seemingly, but see note below) terminal, much-branched thyrses of scented flowers (Mabberley 1995). Indumentum of simple and stellate-tufted hairs. Flowers hermaphrodite and male on same tree (polygamous). Calyx 5 (rarely 6)-lobed to near base, lobes somewhat imbricate. Petals 5 (rarely 6), free, imbricate. Staminal tube narrowly cylindrical, slightly expanded at mouth, 10 (rarely 12)-ribbed, with 10 (or 12) truncate, bifid or 4-fid filiform lobes; anthers 10 (rarely 12), inserted at margin of or just within tube, alternating with or opposite lobes. Disk small, surrounding base of ovary. Ovary 4–8-locular, each locule with two superposed ovules; stylehead capitate to coroniform with 4–8 short, erect or incurved stigmatic lobes. Drupe 3–8-locular; endocarp thick, bony, deeply dimpled at base and apex; locules 1(sometimes 2)-seeded. Seed oblong, laterally compressed; testa leathery sometimes slightly swollen and fleshy around hilum; embryo embedded in oily endosperm; cotyledons flat. Germination with visible cotyledons (phanerocotylar); First leaves (eophylls) opposite, pinnatisect or trifoliolate. 2n = 28. (Mabberley 1984, Mabberley 1995).
Note: The inflorescences of cultivated M. azedarach are short shoots with terminal buds. The true inflorescences are borne in the axils of rudimentary leaves and, after fruit abscission, the terminal bud sometimes grows out into a leafy shoot.
One (possibly two) species in Indomalesia with one or possibly two closely allied ones in south tropical Africa, but modern analysis of the genus is wanting. Forms of the Indomalesian species, Melia azedarach, are widely cultivated and naturalised throughout the warm parts of the world.
Pre-Linnaean authors named the genus ‘Azedarach’ from the Persian ‘āzād dirakht’, meaning ‘noble tree’, but Linnaeus, perhaps rejecting such a ‘barbaric’ name, replaced it with Melia, the Greek word for ash, because, as those earlier authors had noted in their phrase-names, his Melia azadirachta (Neem, now Azadirachta indica A. Juss.), has pinnate leaves resembling those of Fraxinus ornus.
Melia is the type genus of the mahogany family, Meliaceae, but, unlike most species in that overwhelmingly tropical family, its species are commonly deciduous. Few Meliaceae are grown in temperate countries, Toona sinensis, also deciduous, being a notable exception, but their timber has long been of great economic importance internationally, so they are most familiar as furniture woods. See the account of Toona for more information on this and the family in general.
It is sometimes surprising to those from north temperate regions to see such tropical trees and their timbers referred to as ‘cedar’ (Melia azedarach today in Australia being ‘White Cedar’ while ‘Red Cedar’ there is Toona ciliata) which etymological matter is also discussed under Toona.