Category :    Medium Hardwoods

Species

General Characteristics

Sapwood moderately or well defined; colour of heartwood orange yellow-brown; weathering to gold-brown; dark orange-brown; walnut-brown or russet-brown; planed surface moderately lustrous or very glossy; stripe figure on radial surface; texture moderately coarse but even; grain deeply interlocked; moderately hard or hard to cut across grain; air dry density ranging from 495 to over 945 kg/m³ (31 to 59 lb/ft³); moderately durable in the case of A. integer var. sivestris and A. lanceifolius even under severe conditions of exposure; others are non durable.

Structure

Growth rings absent or indistinct.
Vessels with simple perforation; medium-sized or moderately large; few in number or very rarely moderately few; solitary vessels and vessels in groups fairly well balanced (about equal); radial groups composed of 2 to 5 pores; fairly evenly scattered with occasionally a faint suggestion of local arrangement in short tangential lines; tyloses usually present but not abundant; chalky-white deposits often present.
Wood parenchyma exclusively paratracheal; often conspicuously surrounding the pores as vasicentric; aliform or confluent (mostly aliform); the colour of wood paren-chyma is typically orange-brown.
Rays of two sizes; the medium-sized rays clearly visible to the naked eye; the finer ones not; not prominent on a radial surface; colour of the rays typically orange-brown. Ripple marks absent.
Intercellular canals absent.

Other Features

Burning splinter test: Splinter burns to ash.
Froth test: Negative.

Uses