INDO-MALAYAN WOODS. 543 



EBENACE^. 



This family is important because it produces the ebony of commerce. 

 The sap and heaxtwood are often very distinct; sapwood white, yellow, 

 pink or reddish or gray; beartwood black or black-streaked, sometimes 

 with a greenish tinge. Wood hard to very hard and heavy to very heavy. 

 Pores small to moderate-sized, scanty, often in short radial lines which 

 are distant and somewhat in echelon, each pore surrounded by a collar 

 of wood parenchyma one cell thick. Wood parenchyma in fine, more 

 or less regular, sometimes indistinct, parallel concentric lines. The 

 Sapotacea; arc distinguished from the Ebenacetu by having usually red 

 or yellow wood, longer radial lines of pores which have a more conspic- 

 uously oblique arrangement. Also the Sapotacete do not have the collar 

 of wood parenchyma about the pores. 



The different members of the family have such uniform structure 

 that it seems impossible to distinguish the different genera and species 

 structurally. 



Any member of the family may furnish ebony, if the beartwood is 

 sufficiently developed. Many species do furnish ebony, but most of 

 them are of small size and so relatively unimportant. The true black 

 beartwood seems to be somewhat irregular in occurrence. Occasionally 

 a tree of good size seems to lack it entirely. In many cases, old injuries 

 are found to be bordered by a small amount of the black heartwood. 

 The following statements by Hicrn 3 show which arc the best known 

 commercial species and their region of occurrence. 



The following species supply ebony: 



Dioxpyros ebenum Konig. India, etc. 



D. melanoxylon Roxb. India. 



D. dendo Wehv. Angola, west tropical Africa. 



D. sylvatica Roxb. India, etc. 



D. gardneri Thw. Ceylon. 



D. hirsuta L. f. Ceylon. 



D. discolor Willd. Malaya, etc. 



D. embryopteris Pers. India, etc. 



D. ebouislcr Retz. Malaya, etc. 



I), montana Roxb. India, etc. 



D. insignis Thw. Ceylon and southern India. 



D. tupru Ham. India. 



D. mespiliformis Hochst. Tropical Africa. 



D. truncata Zoll. & Mor. Java. 



D. tessellaria Poir. Mauritius. 



D. haplostylis Boiv. Madagascar. 



]). microrhombiis. Madagascar. 



D. ramiflora Wall. Northeast India. 



Maba buxifolia Pers. India, Madagascar, etc. 



.1/. mulala Welw. Angola, west tropical Africa. 



Ihiclea pscudebenvs E. Mey. South Africa. 



3 Hiern, Ebenaceae 20. 



