Category :    Medium Hardwoods

Species

General Characteristics

Sapwood lighter-coloured and fairly distinct; colour of heartwood occasionally pink-brown; more commonly red-brown or dark-brown; planed surface lustrous; with moderately conspicuous flecks on radial surface; texture coarse and fairly even; grain shallowly interlocked or wavy; mod¬erately hard to cut across grain; air dry density on an average 752 kg/m³ (47 lb/ft³); moderately durable in exposed condition or in contact with the ground.

Structure

Growth rings rather indistinct but vague concentric markings generally visible.
Vessels with simple perforation; moderately large or very large: few in number; few solitary, others in radial pairs and multiples of 3 to 8; a few of the large vessels with a tail¬like appendage of very small vessels; scattered without any arrangement; tyloses absent; dark coloured deposits common.
Wood parenchyma of both apotracheal and paratracheal present; apotracheal paren¬chyma are mostly diffuse, less commonly as short, narrow lines between the rays which in some areas are closely spaced and form a scalariform pattern and occasionally innarrow terminal lines; paratracheal parenchyma as narrow borders to the vessels, occasionally with a tendency to aliform.

Other Features

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

Uses