Category :    Heavy Hardwoods

Species

General Characteristics

Sapwood moderately well defined; colour of heartwood yellow-brown or light-brown, sometimes with an olive tinge when fresh, weathering to chocolate-brown; planed surface not particularly lustrous; silver figure on radial surface common; texture fine and even: grain shallowly interlocked; moderately hard to very hard to cut across grain; air dry density ranging from 655 to 1152 kg/m³ (41 to 72 lb/ft³); very durable in the case of V. cuspidata (resak daun runcing).

Structure

Growth rings absent.
Vessels with simple perforation; moderately small to medium-sized; mostly moder¬ately small; ranging from moderately numerous to very numerous, mostly numerous; grouping difficult to see with a hand lens; (but the vessels are exclusively solitary); evenly distributed without any clear arrangement; tylosesvariable.fewin the lightervarieties and abundant in the denser woods; deposits absent, but white or dark-coloured resin secreted from resin canals may simulate vessel-deposits.
Wood parenchyma of both apotracheal and paratracheal types present; apotracheal parenchyma as diffuse strands, or short narrow lines extending from ray to ray or narrow terminal (irregularly spaced) lines; the paratracheal type usually indistinct with a lens, consisting of narrow sheaths to the vessels.

Other Features

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

Uses