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 Mann's novel of dynastic decline, Buddenbrooks, which was to be a collaboration between East Germany's DEFA and West German film companies. Another ambition, in pursuit of which he met Charlie Chaplin near the latter's home at Vevey in May 1954, was a DEFA film with Charlie Chaplin as the leading star. On 6 December 1956 Walter Janka was arrested on a charge of Counter-revolutionary conspiracy and held in the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Remand Prison. By March 1957 he had become one of six men arrested and held in respect of the alleged conspiracy. Janka remained in the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen prison for more than