INDO-MALAYAN WOODS. OOO 



Premna tomentosa Willd. Boengboelan; boelang; bolang; gadoengan; ga- 

 doeng. 



Ceylon, British India, Java. 



Wood said to be almost as durable as teak. Used for house building. 



Van Eed. 188; K. & V. 7:179-182. 



Tectona grandis L. f. Plate XXX, lig. 102. Teak; jati. 



British India, Burma, Java, Siam, and much planted. 



"The best teak is from Malabar, then the Java teak; the Burmese and 

 also the Siamese teak is usually lighter in weight and of brighter color; 

 the greater part of this comes by way of Bangkok, Moulmein, or Rangoon. 



"Wood moderately hard, strongly and characteristically scented and 

 containing an oil which is easily perceptible to the touch and is pre- 

 servative; sapwood white, usually small; heartwood dark, golden-yellow, 

 turning brown, dark-brown and finally almost black with age. Annual 

 rings marked by one or more lines of regularly arranged pores, often set 

 in a belt of loose tissue; in the rest of the wood the pores are scattered, 

 scanty, sometimes subdivided, variable in size from small to moderate- 

 sized, a few large. Pith-rays moderately broad to broad, fairly numerous, 

 giving a conspicuous handsome silver-grain of elongated plates. Pith 

 large quadrangular. 



"The small pieces left in working up big logs are worked up into 

 shingles. There is one difficulty in the utilization of teak wood, viz., 

 that it is so often unsound at the center, necessitating scantlings being 

 cut so as to leave the center out. The unsoundness is due partly to 

 the large soft pith which is easily bored by insects, allowing damp and 

 rot to enter afterwards, and partly, perhaps, to so much of the teak 

 still brought out coming from old overmature trees. Teak is the chief 

 export timber of India and Burma, also the chief building timber of 

 the country. The wood is exported chiefly for shipbuilding, especially 

 for the backing of armor plates in battle ships and for the decks of 

 most vessels, also for the construction of railway carriages and for the 

 best class of house carpentry, being admirably suited for staircases, balus- 

 trades, door and window frames and furniture. In India it is used 

 for all purposes of house and ship building, for bridges, railway sleepers, 

 furniture, shingles, etc. It is used for carving, the Burmese carved leak- 

 wood being especially noted, in Burma itself carved Tvyaungs,' or monas- 

 teries, being prominent in almost every village of any importance. The 

 wood is very durable, as is shown by the specimens obtained by Brandis 

 from the old city of Vijiyanagar (Hampi) in the South Deccan. which 

 are still sound and good though probably five hundred years old. There 

 are also in the Dehra collection pieces, now quite black and very hard, 

 from the ancient city of IJjjain in Ajmere, whose age must be very 



