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 judgement against him. At the same time a legal and journalistic displute flared between Janka and Wolfgang Harich about the details of those 1957 show trials. Janka's contribution to dramaturgy received recognition in the form of the Heinrich Greif Prize in 1990. On 16 December 1989 Janka was a member of the presidium at the of the SED (then in the process of transforming itself into the PDS / Party of Democratic Socialism / " Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus") held in Berlin at the Dynamo Sports Hall. In 1990 he was a member of the "Council of Elders" of the