Kindly sponsored by
Peter Hoffmann
David J. Mabberley (2025)
Recommended citation
Mabberley, D.J. (2025), 'Melia azedarach' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Tree to 40 m tall but usually much less in cultivation, ± deciduous; bole fluted below when old, to 60(–180) cm diameter. Bark grey-brown, smooth, lenticellate, becoming lightly fissured or scaling with age; inner bark yellowish; sapwood whitish, soft; heartwood rusty brown. Crown of widely spread but sparsely branched limbs. Twigs upturned at ends of drooping branchlets, smooth, brown, lenticellate, with raised cicatrices. Leafy twigs c. 6–8 mm diameter, ± clothed with fulvous stellate hairs. Leaves 15–80 cm long, with 3–7 pairs of lateral rachides, each with 3–7 pairs of leaflets, the most proximal of which sometimes replaced by short rachides with a few pairs of leaflets, ± weakly pubescent but usually subglabrous; petiole 8–30 cm long, to 6 mm diameter, terete, lenticellate, swollen at base; lateral rachides weakly ascendant, to 25 cm long, articulated with articulated main rhachis and weakly swollen there; leaflets 3–6(–10) × 1–2.5(–3.0) cm, ovate or oblong-lanceolate to elliptic, base acute to rounded, apex acuminate, margin entire to variously serrate, costae c. 7–10 on each side, subsquarrose to weakly ascendant and arcuate, looped at margin; petiolules 3–7 mm. Thyrses 10–22 cm long, axillary or (see Note in genus description), on short shoots and in axils of rudimentary leaves thereon, primary branches c. 5–7.5 cm, weakly ascendant, secondary to 2 cm, bearing fascicles of scented flowers; axes ± mealy pubescent; bracts 3–10 mm long, filiform, pubescent caducous, bracteoles similar but smaller; pedicels c. 2–3mm. Calyx c. 2 mm diameter; lobes c. 2 mm long, ovate, stellate- and simple-hairy without, margin ciliate. Petals 6–10 × c. 2mm, narrowly oblong, white to lilac or bluish, stellate- and simple-hairy outside, sometimes simple-hairy within, mid-vein conspicuous. Staminal tube subglabrous outside, ± densely simple hairy within, lobes bifid, or 4-fid, sometimes irregularly so; anthers c. 1.5 mm long, apiculate, ± hairy, inserted opposite lobes. Disk obscure and closely enveloping ovary. Pistil glabrous; stylehead c. 0.7 mm diameter. Drupe 2–4 cm long, 1–2 cm diameter, plum-shaped, glabrous, yellow-brown when ripe; endocarp very hard. Seed c. 3.5 × 1.6 mm, oblong, smooth, brown. (Mabberley 1984, Mabberley 1995).
Habitat Found in a range of forest types, to 1200 m (to 1800 m in the Himalayan tract), particularly seasonally dry ones, including bamboo thickets (Thailand) and those on limestone, Tamarindus woodland and Eucalyptus savanna, where it sometimes coppices.
USDA Hardiness Zone 7-11
RHS Hardiness Rating H3
Conservation status Least concern (LC)
In the broad sense Melia azedarach is a complex of wild and cultivated forms, as discussed by Mabberley (1984, 1995), on which this entry is based. Today it is largely known as a street-tree in warm countries, or as a medium-weight timber, (Australian) White-cedar. Ornamental selections of this widespread species, whose native range extends throughout the wide Indopacific region from Pakistan to Australia, 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. In this account we treat this variation under three non-taxonomic heads: the familiar cultivated and naturalised Melia azedarach is discussed under the Indian cultivars section.
Common Names
tô sendan
Synonyms
Melia azedarach var. japonica (G.Don) Makino
Melia azedarach var. toosendan (Siebold & Zucc.) Makino
Melia japonica G.Don
Melia toosendan Siebold & Zucc.
Although these are distinct from the Indian ones, notably in their subentire leaflets and larger fruits, they seem to have been derived from geographically distant populations of the same species of wild tree (see above). Apparently not in cultivation outside glasshouses in western countries.
The Chinese made use of Melia azedarach for patten-making in Guangdong and selected for ornament certain forms with large fruits and leaflets, with rather entire margins. These, like so many Chinese garden plants, were early taken to Japan, where they were known as tô sendan, that is, Chinese Melia, but, again like many Chinese garden plants, Europeans named them ‘Melia japonica’ (independently twice!). By the 1860s, these Chinese cultivars were well-established in cultivation under glass in Europe and also in tropical botanic gardens, notably Bogor in Java.
Synonyms
Melia azedarach L. sensu stricto
See Mabberley (1984, 1995). for full synonymy
Fast-growing small to medium subglabrous, deciduous trees. Leaflets usually irregularly serrate and or with acuminate apices. Flowers sweetly scented; petals mauve, pink or blue, rarely white; staminal tube purple. Yellow autumn colour.
These often ancient selections provide the majority of trees known as Melia azederach cultivated and naturalised in warm temperate and tropical countries. They are often grown as street-trees, as in much of Australia, where Melia was first planted in 1796 (just eight years after white settlement), in Windsor, NSW (and later re-introduced to Britain as if an Australian native, ‘M. australis’!). It must be grown in full sun where it thrives in almost any soil type; it is somewhat salt- and fire-tolerant. Because it fruits so very readily, it can become a nuisance and is indeed invasive in several US states (Category II invasive species in Florida for example) including Hawaii. Its somewhat brittle branches are readily dropped in stormy conditions and the shallow root-systems are reported to invade drains and septic tanks in USA, in South Australia being subject to legislation, “Classified schedule 2, Regulation 24.3 under the Sewerage Act and may be planted in any street or road in any drainage area provided they are not planted closer than 3.5 metres to any sewer main or connection. They should also not be planted closer than 3.5 metres to any sewer pipe in home gardens”.
Nonetheless, the almost continuous flowering of these cultivars in some areas ensures an unbroken supply of the flowers and of the fruits, the endocarps of which have been long used for beads, hence the common name, Bead-tree. On the other hand, the fruits are toxic to humans, some 6–8 considered a fatal dose, and also to pigs, but apparently not to birds, sheep or goats; cows fed on the leaves yield tainted milk. Famously it was held that the Triceratops in the Steven Spielberg’s film Jurassic Park (1993; though in the original novel a Stegosaurus) succumbed to it (https://www.slashfilm.com/535122/why-was-the-triceratops-sick-in-jurassic-park/). The toxic principles are the limonoids, meliatoxins Al, A2, Bl, B2.
This group includes all Melia azedarach and named clonal and other cultivars currently grown in western countries. With flowers scented uncannily like lilac, the unrelated Syringa vulgaris (Oleaceae), Persian Lilac is grown in all the warmer parts of the world and some forms of it can even be grown in sheltered positions outside as far north as the British Isles,The Netherlands and Denmark.
These hardier forms reached Europe via the Persians and Arabs, who exploited their 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 (c. 980–1037) and it was first mentioned in a European text by L’Obel in 1576, about when it seems to have been cultivated in Europe, where, particularly in the Mediterranean, it was soon widely planted and became naturalised. That the dried endocarp has a natural channel through its wall, preadapted the tree for use in rosary-making, such that in Spain it became known as Arbor sancta. From Europe it was introduced to the Americas and Africa, hence the name Cape Lilac in, for example, Western Australia, whither it was introduced from South Africa in the 1830s (Grant 2024).
There was at least one other major introduction of Indian cultivars to Europe, from Sri Lanka. That, perhaps the sort named var. sempervirens by Linnaeus, was being grown under glass 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: whether or not this was one of the ‘wild’ trees or indeed a form of Persian Lilac is unclear. Certainly, a somewhat evergreen form of Persian Lilac was later introduced to the West Indies and was taken thence to Africa and reintroduced to Europe as an African plant (as M. guineensis)!
Forms of the Indian cultivars with precocious flowering have been selected, as have ones with white flowers and deeply lobed leaflets, some of which seem to have arisen in Java in the nineteenth century. Although so common in warm countries and with such weedy tendencies, Persian lilac is often dismissed by the discriminating, but good forms with dark heavily scented flowers are desirable nevertheless. Because the large endocarps (‘seeds’) of the standard forms can be a nuisance for mowers, besides concern over the invasive issue, there has recently been selection, in Australia, for reduced fecundity, though such cultivars need to be grafted on stock of the culprits. The cultivars include some rather unfortunate variegated ones. At least one of those, ‘Jade Snowflake’, as well as ‘Floribunda’ breed true from seed, suggesting that apomixis may be in play, as it is in certain other Meliaceae, notably the fruit-tree known as Langsat, Lansium domesticum from south-east Asia.
Melia azedarach is on the edge of hardiness in our area, but there have long been reports of ocasional survivors in southern England. Bean’s assertion (1981) that it was grown in early 17th century London by John Parkinson is however a mis-reading of the rather complicated text of the second edition of Gerard’s Herball (Gerard & Johnson 1633), though the text is accompanied by a fine woodblock print (see above) and it is clear that the species was by then well-established in southern European gardens. Philip Miller (Miller 1768) considered it hardy in the Chelsea Physic Garden during the 18th century, provided that young plants were appropriately protected in winter, still very sound advice; and it grew and flowered near Bristol in the 1920s and 30s (Bean 1981). At the present time there are a few scattered trees in mild gardens in southern and western Britain and the Channel Islands, among which is the unrivalled champion, a fine tree in St Leonards Terrace, Chelsea. This was measured for the Tree Register in 2019 at 13.5 m tall with a girth of 134 cm (The Tree Register 2024). Planted in 2001 it is recorded as flowering well by 2005. As it grows very close to the Royal Hospital Chelsea, it is frequently admired by dendrologists attending the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May, when it is usually in flower: it gives rise to the hope that M. azederach might prove to be a useful street tree for hot urban environments in northern Europe in future, but careful provenance selection will be necessary. A plant on trial in a Danish garden has achieved 3 m in height and appears to be flourishing (P. Hoffmann pers. comm. 2025).
Crown rounded, but not as dense as ‘Umbraculiformis’. Flowers pale lilac. Few fruits maturing. Usually grafted.
Propagated (2007 PBR) by Fleming’s Nurseries, Monbulk, Victoria, from a street-tree growing at Caroline Springs, Melbourne, Victoria (Leanne Gillies in litt. 23 Dec 2024), which place commemorates Caroline Chisholm (1808–77), humanitarian and reformer.
Crown rounded, but not as dense as ‘Umbraculiformis. Flowers lilac, few and usually remaining in bud so infertile, therefore trees to be propagated by bud-grafting. Apparently selected in Australia.
Synonyms / alternative names
Melia floribunda Carrière
Melia azedarach var. floribunda (Carrière) É.Morren
Melia nana nom. nud.
Flowering when only a few dm tall, ‘Floribunda’ makes a rather congested head of leaves on top of a sparsely-branched stem with inflorescences as big as those of standard Persian Lilac. This curious but useful plant has been recently discussed in The Plantsman (Mabberley 2018), on which this entry is based
Described from plants growing in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, in 1872, it was used for conservatory work in Europe (and even as a window-sill plant in USA), reportedly as an introduction from Havana, Cuba. In USA, by 1891, plants were being offered at 35c each by R.D. Hoyt’s Seven Oaks nursery in Bay View Florida, then in 1901 at 35c and 50c by Reasoner Brothers’ Royal Palm Nurseries, also in Florida. It was grown outside at La Mortola for some years and, in March 1897, a flowering shoot from Burys Court, Reigate, was exhibited in London. In 1910, The Florists’ Exchange could report that in Cuba it was ‘forever in bloom’. ‘Floribunda’ had a vogue in formal ‘tropical’ carpet-bedding on the Continent late in the nineteenth century, but it has only lately been re-introduced to France, from Australian stock, as it seemed to have been lost in Europe – and in USA, though it survives in Florida and occasionally in collections elsewhere. It comes true from seed, and as a small pot-plant, or for use in the open garden it is very decorative, having a long flowering season. A hard prune in late winter is beneficial to maintain compact floriferousness.
Leaves heavily variegated with white. Found by Scott Ogden in a farmyard in San Antonio, Texas, in 1989 and introduced by J.C. Raulston, but reportedly unstable, sometimes reverting to green (Dirr 2009). It can form an attractive small tree 6–10 m tall, its pallor effective in light shade, as seen in woodland conditions in the former garden of Bobby Ward and Roy Dicks in Raleigh, North Carolina (J. Grimshaw pers.comm. 2024). It comes true from seed if grown in isolation from regular Persian Lilac (Dirr 2009). This remarkable, very heavily variegated cultivar was found in a farmyard in San Antonio, Texas, in 1989, but it is reported to be unstable, reverting to green on occasion (Dirr 2009). It comes true from seed if grown in isolation from normal specimens (Dirr 2009).
Habit somewhat fastigiate. Foliage irregularly variegated. Spontaneous mutation propagated by Mark Hartley, Shanes Park, New South Wales, Australia, c.1992.
Crown umbrella-like. Leaflets markedly dissected. Fruit not set.
A chance seedling selected by Vic Ciccolella In 2001 at Oakville, NSW. It was asexually propagated by bud grafting and first sold in Australia in August 2006.
Crown umbrella-like. Leaflets markedly dissected. Fruit not set.
A chance seedling selected by Vic Ciccolella In 2001 at Oakville, New South Wales. It was asexually propagated by bud grafting and first sold in Australia in August 2006.
Synonyms / alternative names
Melia azedarach var. umbraculiformis Berck. & L.H.Bailey
M. azedarach f. umbraculifera (G.W.Knox) Rehder
Melia texana M.Gómez & Roig.
Synonyms
Melia azedarach var. umbraculiformis
M. azedarach f. umbraculiformis
M. texana
Tree with a dense flattened crown, the leaves with narrow leaflets.
Much grown in SW USA as ‘Texas umbrella tree’. Although said [Bean] to have appeared on the battlefield of San Jacinto, Texas (where, on 21 April 1836, Houston’s Texas secessionist army defeated the Mexican one in18 minutes), according to nurseryman George Washington Knox (1839–1904) in Gardeners’ Monthly 27: 260 (1885), the first noted as growing in USA was found on Galveston Island, Texas “where once stood the village of Campeachy [Campeche], which was from 1817 to 1821 the rendezvous of the celebrated buccaneer [= pirate; also smuggler], Lafitte [i.e. Jean Laffite; c. 1780-c.1823], who roamed the seas in search of booty, and it is supposed that the Umbrella China [sic] was brought to Galveston Island, by his vessels, from some island or country in the tropics.” In view of Laffitte’s operations, it seems probable that that was somewhere in the Caribbean. Seeds were distributed from the original tree to Harrisburg and Lynchburg, Texas, and thence throughout the state.
Tree with a dense flattened crown, the leaves with narrow leaflets.
Much grown in SW USA as ‘Texas umbrella tree’. Although said (e.g. Bean (1981)) to have appeared on the battlefield of San Jacinto, Texas (where, on 21 April 1836, Houston’s Texas secessionist army defeated the Mexican forces in 18 minutes), according to nurseryman George Washington Knox (1839–1904) in Gardeners’ Monthly 27: 260 (1885), the first noted as growing in USA was found on Galveston Island, Texas “where once stood the village of Campeachy [Campeche], which was from 1817 to 1821 the rendezvous of the celebrated buccaneer Lafitte [i.e. Jean Laffite; c. 1780-c.1823], who roamed the seas in search of booty, and it is supposed that the Umbrella China [sic] was brought to Galveston Island, by his vessels, from some island or country in the tropics.” In view of Laffitte’s operations, it seems probable that that was somewhere in the Caribbean. Seeds were distributed from the original tree to Harrisburg and Lynchburg, Texas, and thence throughout the state.
Tall forest trees to 40 m. Leaflets ± entire, dark above, pale below, when young usually densely stellate-tomentose like young shoots. Flowers sweetly scented, scentless or even malodorous. Petals white or pale mauve, often pubescent within. Staminal tube creamish or pale mauve darkening to purple with age. Drupe up to 4 cm long.
Truly wild trees are known from India (where sometimes referred to as Melia dubia, M. composita), Nepal, Sri Lanka and tropical China, south and east through Malesia (Sumatra, Java, Philippines, Lesser Sunda Is. and New Guinea) to tropical Australia and the Solomon Islands.
It is possible that the range of form across the entire geographical range of the species might best be recognised by using the rank of geographical subspecies, to the west the trees now known as Melia dubia, to the north (formerly M. toosendan) and to the east what has been called M. azedarach var. australasica (M. australasica). Although molecular analysis across the range is wanting, ‘M. dubia’ has some distinctive features, lending support to such an arrangement (Sivaraj et al. 2018).
Apparently not in cultivation outside in temperate countries, these unselected forms provide the White Cedar or Lunumidella of commerce and have been tried in plantations notably in the Philippines but now particularly India. In Kolkata in the early nineteenth century, what is now grown as Melia dubia as a commercial timber crop in India, grew to some 12–15 m in six years and had boles over a metre in girth. The wood of different forms of the species has been used for furniture and light construction, for plywood, poles, tool handles, ceilings, boats, tea-chests and is important in the sports goods industries of Pakistan. In tropical America trees have been grown in plantations for the production of fibreboard and in Japan for ‘particleboard’. During the American Civil War, the trees were a commercial source of alcohol (10% by weight from the fruits).
Trees have been used as a fast-growing coffee-shade in tropical countries and it has been reported that fruit trees grown under their canopy remain relatively free from aphids. Indeed, a decoction of the fruits has long been used as an insecticide for plants in India; fruits or leaves have been placed with dried fruit, clothing and in books to keep insects away, while powdered ripe seeds or leaves are mixed with stored grain to preserve it from insect attack. An ester of 2,3,16,20-tetra- hydroxypregnane (a C21-steroid), azedarachol, isolated from root-bark showed antifeedant activity against turnip moth Agrotis segetum in Japan. An extract has also been used as a fish poison. In China, the seed-oil has been found to be quite effective as an antifeedant to yellow rice-borers and white- backed and brown plant-hoppers. The seed-oil is also used in control of certain citrus pests and is suitable for soap and hair oil.
The root appears as Cortex Meliae azedarach in pharmacopeiae but it is generally held that the bark is most efficacious, particularly as a vermifuge. There is a long medicinal tradition of its use as a diuretic as well as in the treatment of worms, skin disease and rheumatism, but it is often confused with Neem (Azadirachta indica) in this regard. The limonoids, typical of the family, include toosendanin, which is the effective principle in traditional Chinese medicine, is of increasing interest in cancer treatment; it has been found to reverse adriamycin resistance in human breast cancer cells for example (Zhang, Zeng & Liu 2021). A glycopeptide, meliacin, isolated from the leaves and roots is responsible for inhibition of in-vitro replication of various DNA and RNA viruses, such as poliovirus, herpes simplex Type I, and prevents development of encephalitis by Tacaribe virus in neonatal mice.