Category :    Medium Hardwoods

Species

General Characteristics

Sapwood lighter-coloured than heart-wood but not well defined; colour of heartwood grey-brown with or without a pink tinge or reddish brown; planed surface very lustrous; stripe figure on radial sur¬face and ornamental zig-zag markings on tangential faces; texture rather coarse but even; grain interlocked; hard or moderately hard to cut across grain; air dry density ranging from 655 to 880 kg/m³ (40 to 55 lb/ft³) averaging 47 lb/ft³; moderately durable in the case of S. floribunda var. penangiana; other species of Merpauh are not durable.

Structure

Growth rings fairly distinct, produced by terminal layers of wood parenchyma.
Vessels with simple perforation; medium-sized; moderately large; generally few, rarely moderately few; as solitary and in pairs and multiples of 3 to 7 in a series, evenly distributed without any arrangement; tyloses often present but not well developed; de¬posits absent.
Wood parenchyma both apotracheal, as irregularly spaced concentric bands (termi¬nal) and paratracheal, as narrow incomplete borders to the vessels.
Rays very fine, not visible to the naked eye except for occasional medium-sized rays containing horizontal canals; fairly prominent on radial surface due to the significant contrast in colour between the rays and the background.
Ripple marks absent.
Intercellular canals of the horizontal type characteristic.

Other Features

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

Uses

The timber is suitable for light and medium construction under cover. The attractively streaked corewood, if available is suitable for high-class joinery and furniture. The timber is suitable for interior finishing, panelling, partitioning and flooring. The timber has been successfully tried for rotary-cut veneers.