Toona sinensis, commonly calledChinesemahogany, Chinese cedar, Chinese toon, beef and onion plant, or red toon is a species of Toonanative to eastern and southeasternAsia, from North Korea south through most of eastern, central and southwestern China to Nepal, northeastern India, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, and western Indonesia. It is a deciduous tree growing to tall with a trunk up to 70 cm diameter. The bark is brown, smooth on young trees, becoming scaly to shaggy on old trees. The leaves are pinnate, 50–70 cm long and 30–40 cm broad, with 10–40 leaflets, the terminal leaflet usually absent but sometimes present ; the individual leaflets 9–15 cm long and 2.5–4 cm broad, with an entire or weakly serrated margin. The flowers are produced in summer in panicles 30–50 cm long at the end of a branch; each flower is small, 4–5 mm diameter, with five white or pale pink petals. The fruit is a capsule 2–3.5 cm long, containing several winged seeds.
Cultivation and uses
The young leaves of T. sinensis are extensively used as a vegetable in China; they have a floral, yet onion-like flavor, attributed to volatile organosulfur compounds. Plants with red young leaves are considered of better flavour than those where the young leaves are green. In China and Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, the young leaves of Toona sinensis or commonly known as Chinese Mahogany is used to make Toona paste, which is used as a condiment to serve with plain rice porridge as breakfast and simple meals, or to enhance the flavour of a dish or soup. Common dishes made with Toona paste are Chinese Mahogany fried rice, Chinese Mahogany beancurd, and Chinese Mahogany mushroom soup. The timber is hard and reddish; it is valuable, used for furniture making and for bodies of electric guitars. Being a "true mahogany", it is one of the common replacements for Swietenia mahogany which is now commercially restricted from being sourced natively. Outside its native region T. sinensis is valued more as a large ornamental tree for its haggard aspect. It is by far the most cold-tolerant species in the Meliaceae and the only member of the family that can be cultivated successfully in northern Europe.
Culture
In Chinese literature, Toona sinensis is often used for a rather extreme metaphor, with a mature tree representing a father. This manifests itself occasionally when expressing best wishes to a friend's father and mother in a letter, where one can write "wishing your Toona sinensis and daylily are strong and happy", with Toona sinensis metaphorically referring to the father and daylily to the mother.
