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Wood
Facts
Below are some
interesting facts about some of the wood you will find
on my site.
Burl
Wood: Burl (lignotuber - from the Latin for "woody
swelling") is a large, dense,
heavy, frequently gnarly outgrowth on trees whose fancy,
compressed grain figures, when sliced, make them ideal for
exotic wood veneers; commonly used as decorative material
on the finest of wood
products
Amboyna
Burl:
-
Common
Name: Amboyna
Burl
-
About:
Amboyna
comes from the legume (Leguminosae) or pea family is
reported to occur only in Indonesia. This wood is
named after the isle of Ambon where much of this
material was originally found. Amboyna is a
marvelously luxurious burl from the tree that is
commonly known as Narra. Often it is finely sliced to
produce an extremely decorative veneer, used for
decoration and in making of furniture and keys on a
marimba. In China, Pterocarpus wood is used in the
hexagonal body of special Beijing Opera-instrument:
jinghu, a two-string bowed fiddle, as well as other
Chinese fiddles. A rare, exotic hardwood with a
fragrant aroma. It can vary in color from yellow to
golden brown to red with mottled or striped black
grain. Thanks in part to its wavy grain, Amboyna Burl
is figured with numerous, captivating
swirls.
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Scientific
Name: Pterocarpus_indicus
-
Origin: Southeast
Asia, Indonesia
-
Wood Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
Ambrosia
Maple:
-
Common
Name: Ambrosia Maple
-
About: The dramatic coloring in
this maple, is
caused by the Ambrosia Beetle. The beetle causes pinholes
1/100" - 1/4" in diameter and attacks only recently
killed/cut trees, logs, and green lumber. They usually bore
into the sapwood of both hard and softwoods although
sometimes they affect the heartwood. Interestingly, the
beetle does not consume the wood; rather, when he excavates
his "tunnel", he introduces two types of
fungus. The
first grows on the walls of the "tunnel" and it is
this fungus which is consumed by the beetle for
nourishment. The fungus is called Ambrosia and the
name was passed on to include the
beetle. The second fungus is a staining
fungus which, if introduced, causes greenish-gray or
bluish-black staining around the
pinholes.
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Scientific
Name: Acer
Rubrum
-
Origin: North
America
-
Wood
Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
Box Elder
Burl:
-
Common
Name:
Box Elder
Burl
-
About: The best thing
about the tree is that it will grow on adverse sites where
more desirable trees may not. Box Elder is native along stream banks over
a wide area of the United Sates, grows along flood
plains and naturalizes quickly on disturbed sites.
This tree has a short life and susceptibility to boxelder
bug and trunk
decay.
-
Scientific Name: Acer
negundo
-
Origin: North America
-
Wood Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
Bubinga:
-
Common
Name: Bubinga
Minor
-
About:
Bubinga
grows in West Africa from East Nigeria through Gabon
to Zaire. It ranges from medium to dark red-brown
with purple veining, although some material is
slightly lighter in color. It is a hard, dense and
beautiful wood. Bubinga is excellent for turnery and
is easy to
finish.
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Scientific
Name: Copaifera
salikounda
-
Origin:
West
Africa
-
Wood
Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
Buckeye Burl:
-
Common
Name: Buckeye
-
About:
Buckeye burl grows in the midwestern US,
from southern Michigan south to northern Alabama, western
Pennsylvania west to Kansas, Oklahoma, and central
Texas. This wood has amazing figure and
most people that see it for the first time make the
comment, "Is that wood or is that
marble?" In fact many people think that it is marble
or some simular material. This wood has a wide range of
color and figure and is coveted by many
woodworkers.
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Scientific
Name: Aeculus
octandra
-
Origin: North
America
-
Wood
Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
Bocote:
-
Common
Name:
Bocote
-
About:
The
growth range of the species is reported to include
the West Indies, tropical America, Mexico, Belize and
Honduras. This species is officially classified as
either Extinct, Endangered, Rare, or Vulnerable
within its natural habitat in Costa Rica. Bocote is
also commonly referred to as Bucote, Cordia, Light
American Cordia. Tree is very small and normally is
only found with 5 to 15 inch diameter trunks. The
heartwood is rich, golden brown with a pinkish tint,
often showing variegated irregular markings and an
attractive ray fleck figure when quarter sawn. Bocote
is a strong lustrous wood, with medium and uniform
texture and straight or shallowly interlocked
grain.
-
Scientific Name: Cordia
elaeagnoides
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Origin: Central America
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Wood Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
Cocobolo:
-
Common
Name: Cocobolo
-
About:
Cocobolo
is a member of the Rosewood family. It grows in the
drier uplands on the Pacific side of Mexico down to
Panama. Extremely oily it will reject almost any
finish except wax. It shines up to a nice luster.
Even an oil based varnish will not stick. There is no
treatment that will make it suitable for bonding with
glue, but it can be nailed or screwed easily. It is
waterproof which is excellent for making knife
handles. It smells like lilacs while it is being sawn
or sanded. It varies in color from red to yellow and
striped with black to lighter black. It darkens with
age.
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Scientific Name: Dalbergia
Retusa
-
Origin: Central
America
-
Wood Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
Ebony:
-
Common
Name:
Ebony
-
About: In ancient Egypt, ebony was
floated down the Nile from deep in the continent,
and reserved strictly for pharaohs. King Tut's tomb
yielded numerous objects made from the wood they
called hebni -- an ornate throne, several statues,
numerous chests, and the sliding draw bolts that
latched the doors for 2,500
years! For India's
reigning monarchs, nothing would do except ebony
scepters to wave over their subjects. Because at
that time it was believed the wood was an antidote
for poison, royal households also had it made into
drinking cups in hopes of foiling assassination
attempts.
Even in the
Old Testament, this sought-after wood made a
newsworthy gift. In Ezekiel 24:15, it says " ...
they brought thee for a present horns of ivory and
ebony." **Courtesy of "Wood
Magazine"
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Scientific
Name: Diospyrus
Crassiflora
-
Origin: Southeast
Asia
-
Wood
Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
Mahogany
:
-
Common
Name:
Mahogany
-
About:
The
growth range of the species is distributed throughout
the rainforests of Latin American. Mahogany is
perhaps the most valuable timber tree in the whole of
Latin America and has been heavily exploited for most
of this century. Mahogany is becoming increasingly
rare, and is already extinct in parts of its original
range. South American Mahogany is also referred to as
True or Genuine Mahogany, Big Leaf Mahogany, Central
American Mahogany, British Honduras Mahogany, Costa
Rican Mahogany, Brazilian Mahogany, Peruvian
Mahogany, Nicaraguan Mahogany. This hardwood varies
from yellowish, reddish, pinkish, or salmon colored
when freshly cut, to a deep rich red, to reddish
brown as the wood matures with age. Mahogany is fine
to medium texture, with uniform to interlocking
grain, ranging from straight to wavy or curly.
Irregularities in the grain often produce highly
attractive figures such as fiddleback or
mottle.
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Scientific
Name: Swietenia
macrophylla
-
Origin: South
America
-
Wood
Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
Maple
Burl:
-
Common
Name:
Maple
Burl
-
About:
The
growth range of the species is limited to the
Northwestern United States of America; Alaska to
California to west central Idaho, mostly west of the
Cascades, usually found growing lower than 1,500
meters in elevation. The heartwood has an
unbelievably, swirly, unpredictable grain patterns
with light to dark variations of cream brown to dark
brown color with natural edges, bark inclusions and
internal voids being present and are not considered
defects but responsible for this woods unique
appearance and
character.
-
Scientific
Name: Acer
macrophyllum
-
Origin: North
America
-
Wood
Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
Marblewood
:
-
Common
Name: Marblewood
-
About:
The
growth range of the species to grow in the Andaman
and Nicobar Islands of Southeast Asia. Marblewood is
variegated black and brown timber is actually part of
the Ebony family of woods. Ebonies are generally
thought of as black timbers. In reality some of the
species have only a tiny pencil sized black zone and
some of them are white, cream or yellow all
through.
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Scientific Name: Diospyros
marmorata
-
Origin: Southeast
Asia
-
Wood Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
Olivewood
:
-
Common
Name:
Olivewood
-
About:
The
growth range of the species is widely cultivated in
sub-tropical areas of Europe, Africa and the Middle
East mainly for its olives. Olivewood is native to
coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean region,
from Syria and the maritime parts of Asia Minor to
patchy areas of Northern Iran and the Southern
Caspian (Manjil and Roodbar). The olive tree is the
oldest known cultivated tree in history. Olives were
first cultivated in Africa, and then spread to
Morocco, Algiers, and Tunisia by the Phoenicians.
Olea europaea was first cultivated in Crete and Syria
over 5000 years ago. Around 600 BC olive tree
cultivation spread to Greece, Italy and other
Mediterranean countries. This exotic wood is hard,
heavy and strong. It is a beautiful yellowish colored
wood with dark grain patterns and sometimes streaks
or swirls of brilliant red, tan, brown, and black.
Olive Wood is a straighter grain while the Burl has
very unusual grain
pattern.
-
Scientific Name: Olea
europaea
-
Origin: Mediterranean
-
Wood Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
Figured
Poplar:
-
Common
Name:
Poplar
-
About:
Yellow
poplar trees grow taller than any other U.S. hardwood
species and they are members of the magnolia family.
The bark, leaves, flowers, fruit and roots contain
pharmaceuticals. Poplar is the state tree of Indiana,
Kentucky and
Tennessee.
-
Scientific Name: Liriodendron
tulipifera
-
Origin: North America
-
Wood Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
Red Mallee
Burl:
-
Common
Name:
Red
Mallee
-
About:
A mallee
is a "scrubland vegetation" or "bush" that is common
in many parts of Australian wetlands and savannahs.
At harvest the mallee tree delivers a host of
valuable products aside from eucalyptus oil, such as
activated charcoal (the most important component of
most of the world’s air and water filters), raw
material for particle board and finally biomass for
energy generation. Red Mallee is also referred to as
Gooseberry Mallee, Pink Gooseberry Mallee,
Square-Fruit Mallee, Beginning with Aboriginal people
who used eucalyptus oil for medicinal purposes,
eucalypts have a long history as beneficial plants.
Early colonists in New South Wales observed this and
began to harvest and export the oil in the 1800’s. It
was the first export of that colony. In what would
later be revealed as a costly twist of fate,
Australian production began to decline in the 1940’s
due to cheap labour and Tasmanian Blue Gum timber
plantations in developing countries. The paradoxical
result has been that Australia has become a net
importer of eucalyptus oil over the past 50 years
despite the abundant domestic supply of eucalypt
species.
-
Scientific Name: Eucalyptus
calycogona
-
Origin: Australia
-
Wood Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
Redwood
Burl:
-
Common
Name:
Redwood
-
About:
The
coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is one of the
three sequoia species, together with the giant
sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) and the dawn
redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides). The coast
redwood grows in natural stands in a long, thin
coastal area along the Pacific Ocean in the west and
northwest of the US (mostly California). It is the tallest tree in the
world.
With its relatively
slender silhouette this tree can grow even 20 meters
higher than the tallest giant sequoias, that are
nevertheless the biggest trees in the world, when
looking at the volume of the trunk. The tallest known
living tree, named Hyperion, is 115.55 m or 379.1
feet (measured in 2006) tall! This gets close to 120
to 130 m, that, according to a 2004 biological study,
is the maximum attainable height [1] of a tree.
-
Scientific Name: Sequoia
sempervirens
-
Origin: North America
-
Wood Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
Thuya
Burl:
-
Common
Name:
Thuya
Burl
-
About:
Tetraclinis is a distinct genus of
evergreen coniferous tree in the cypress family
Cupressaceae, containing only one species,
Tetraclinis articulata, also known as Sandarac. It is
native to northwestern Africa in the Atlas Mountains
of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, with two small
outlying populations on Malta, and near Cartagena in
southeast Spain. It grows at relatively low altitudes
in a hot, dry subtropical Mediterranean climate. The
resin (sandarac) from the Thuya tree is used to make
varnish and lacquer and it is particularly valued for
preserving paintings. This hardwood color varies
from a rich, lustrous golden reddish brown to nearly
black with heavy small dark 'eyes'. It is very hard,
heavy, oily, and aromatic, but tends to be brittle.
The eyes, perfectly round, are scattered about in
some burls like the figure in bird’s-eye maple; in
others they are grouped as
islands.
-
Scientific
Name: Tetraclinis_articulata
-
Origin: Africa
-
Wood Type: Hardwood, Angiosperm,
Deciduous
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