The mahogany tree, says the _Lumber World_, is a native of the West Indies, the Bahamas, and that portion of Central America that lies adjacent to the Bay of Honduras, and has also been found in Florida. It is stated to be of moderately rapid growth, reaching its full maturity in about two hundred years. Full grown, it is one of the monarchs of tropical America. Its trunk, which often exceeds forty feet in length and six in diameter, and massive arms, rising to a lofty height, and spreading with graceful sweep over immense spaces, covered with beautiful foliage, bright, glossy, light, and airy, clinging so long to the spray as to make it almost an evergreen, present a rare combination of loveliness and grandeur. The leaves are small, delicate, and polished like those of the laurel. The flowers are small and white, or greenish yellow. The fruit is a hard, woody capsule, oval, not unlike the head of a turkey in size and shape, and contains five cells, in each of which are inclosed about fifteen seeds. The mahogany tree was not discovered till the end of the sixteenth century, and was not brought into European use till nearly a century later. The first mention of it is that it was used in the repair of some of Sir Walter Raleigh's ships, at Trinidad, in 1597. Its finely variegated tints were admired, but in that age the dream of El Dorado caused matters of more value to be neglected. The first that was brought to England was about 1724, a few planks having been sent to Dr. Gibbons, of London, by a brother who was a West Indian captain. The doctor was erecting a house, and gave the planks to the workmen, who rejected them as being too hard. The doctor then had a candle-box made of the wood, his cabinet-maker also complaining of the hardness of the timber. But, when finished, the box became an object of general curiosity and admiration. He had one bureau, and her Grace of Buckingham had another, made of this beautiful wood, and the despised mahogany now became a prominent article of luxury, and at the same time raised the fortunes of the cabinet-maker by whom it had been so little regarded. Since that lime it has taken a leading rank among the ornamental woods, having come to be considered indispensable where luxury is intended to be indicated.