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
Carlo Janka won the gold medal in giant slalom and the bronze in downhill at the 2009 World Championships in Val d'Isère. On the weekend of 4–6 December, 2009, Janka achieved a remarkable feat by winning the super-combined, downhill, and giant slalom on the challenging "Birds of Prey" course at Beaver Creek, Colorado. Janka was the first skier to win three World Cup races in a single weekend since Hermann Maier at the same location ten years earlier on the 2000 World Cup tour. On the same weekend as Janka triumphed in Beaver Creek, Lindsey Vonn almost duplicated the feat on the