Category :    Light Hardwoods

Species

General Characteristics

Sapwood generally not differentiated in freshly sawn limber but in the course of time it is attacked by blue stain fungi and becomes fairly distinct or distinct; colour of heartwood yellow-brown, occasionally with a rose tinge, darkening on exposure to a straw-brown; planed surface without lustre and featureless except for a mild form of silver figure and subtle stripe figure on radial surface; texture moderately coarse but even; grain interlocked; moderately hard to cut across grain; airdry density ranging from 512 to 736 kg/m³ (32 to 46 lb/ft³) and on an average 640 kg/m³ (40 lb/ft³); durable even in adverse conditions (based on the species A. laevis and A. marginata tested). Structure

Structure

Growth rings absent.
Vessels with simple perforation: medium-sized or moderately large; generally mod¬erately few in number (occasionally only few); exclusively solitary or predominantly solitary with a few radial or oblique pairs; diffuse but with a tendency to align in short oblique lines; tyloscs sparse or absent; vessel deposits wanting but resin in solitary resin canals may be mistaken for vessel deposits.
Wood parenchyma both paratrachcal and apotracheal types; paratracheal parenchyma vasicentric as narrow borders to the vessels; with or without a tendency to aliform; apotracheal types partially or completely surrounding isolated resin canals, occasional concentric bands or tangential layers containing resin canals and diffuse strands, which often form short tangential lines between the rays and produce a scalariform pattern.

Other Features

Burning splinter test: Bums to ash.
Froth test : Negative.

Uses