Guaiacum uses, including as lumber, for medicinal purposes, and as ornamentals. The trade of all species of "Guaiacum" is controlled under CITES Appendix II. "Guaiacum officinale" is the national flower of Jamaica, while "Guaiacum sanctum" is the national tree of the Bahamas. The genus is famous as the supplier of lignum vitae, which is the heartwood of several species in the genus. It is the fourth-hardest variety of wood as measured by the Janka hardness test, requiring a force of to embed a steel ball in diameter half that distance into the wood. The Spanish encountered guaiacum wood when they conquered
Walter Janka exile in Mexico, where together with Paul Merker and Alexander Abusch he founded the "Free Germany" (""Freies Deutschland"") movement. In Mexico he ran the publishing business "El Libro Libre", which also employed the exiled German writer Anna Seghers. In 1946 Janka took on the leadership of the Mexican section of the German Communist party (KPD). After the end of the Second World War Janka returned, in April 1947, to what was Soviet occupation zone, later to become German Democratic Repbulic in 1949. In 1947 he married his long-standing partner, a translator called Charlotte (Lotte) Scholz. The couples' two children, André