Category :    Light Hardwoods

Species

General Characteristics

Sapwood not differentiated by colour; colour of heartwood pale brown orpink-brown, but occasionally some species (possibly of all genera) develop a distinctive core, (15 to 20 cm in diameter) which is deep purple-red or chocolate-red; planed surface moderately lustrous; flat sawn surface with growth ring figure; texture moderately fine and not very even due to rather widely dispersed vessels; grain almost straight; soft or moderately hard to cut across grain; air dry density ranging from 480 to 736 kg/m³ (30 to 46 lb/ft³) av¬eraging 592 kg/m³ (37 lb/ft³); not durable.

Structure

Growth rings distinct, produced by terminal bands of wood parenchyma.
Vessels partly with exclusively simple perforation and partly with both simple and scalariform perforation, but the scalariform perforation generally difficult to spot with a hand lens; medium-sized; very few, few or moderately few in number; less than 50% solitary; others in radial pairs, radial multiples of 3 to 5 (but rarely more than 3) and occasional clusters; the predominantly radial pairs and multiples suggest a radial arrange¬ment of the vessels; tyloses well developed in some vessels but sparse or absent in others; deposits common in the coloured corewood, not observed in the lighter-coloured wood.
Wood parenchyma sparse; paratracheal which is generally not visible with a lens; apotracheal parenchyma as irregularly spaced (terminal) bands.

Other Features

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

Uses