Ocotea
Ocotea | ||||||||||||
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Ocotea foetens (Terra Chã, Azores). | ||||||||||||
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Ocotea is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Lauraceae. The genus includes over 200 species of evergreen trees and shrubs, distributed mostly in tropical and subtropical regions of Central and South America, the West Indies, also with a few species in Africa and Madagascar, and one, Ocotea foetens (Til or Tilo), native to the islands of Macaronesia.
- Selected species
Cultivation and uses
Plants of the genus produce essential oils, and O. cymbarum, Peruvian Rosewood (O. caudata), Brazilian Sassafras (O. pretiosa), and East African Camphorwood (O. usambarensis) are exploited commercially. A few species are harvested for commercial timber, including O. puberula of Central and South America and O. bullata, known as Black Stinkwood or True Stinkwood, of South Africa.