Melia azedarach 'Floribunda'

Melia azedarach, commonly known as bead-tree or Cape lilac, is a species of deciduous tree in the mahogany family, Meliaceae, that is native to Pakistan, India, Indochina, Southeast Asia and Australia. The genus Melia includes four other species, occurring from southeast Asia to northern Australia. They are all deciduous or semi-evergreen trees.

The adult tree has a rounded crown, and commonly measures attains a height of 7-12 metres, however in exceptional circumstances M. azedarach can attain a height of 45 metres.. The flowers are small and fragrant, with five pale purple or lilac petals, growing in clusters. The fruit is a drupe, marble-sized, light yellow at maturity, hanging on the tree all winter, and gradually becoming wrinkled and almost white.

The leaves are up to 50 cm long, alternate, long-petioled, 2 or 3 times compound (odd-pinnate); the leaflets are dark green above and lighter green below, with serrate margins.

Melia is a genus of flowering trees in the mahogany family, Meliaceae. The name is derived from μηλια, the Greek word Theophrastus (c. 371 – c. 287 BC) used for Fraxinus ornus, which has similar leaves.

The Meliaceae, or the Mahogany family, is a flowering plant family of mostly trees and shrubs (and a few herbaceous plants, mangroves) in the order Sapindales.

They are characterised by alternate, usually pinnate leaves without stipules, and by syncarpous, apparently bisexual (but actually mostly cryptically unisexual) flowers borne in panicles, cymes, spikes, or clusters. Most species are evergreen, but some are deciduous, either in the dry season or in winter.

The family includes about 50 genera and 550 species, with a pantropical distribution; one genus (Toona) extends north into temperate China and south into southeast Australia, and another (Melia) nearly as far north.