-le'af, rougher bark, and slightly harder timber than Outeniqua 

 Yellow-wood. 



OCOTEA BULLATA STINKWOOD. 



Stink wood follows the belt of the indigenous evergreen forest 

 from Cape Town to the Woodbush Range in the North-East of the 

 Transvaal, this forest belt rising in altitude through the Transkei 

 and Natal as lower latitudes are reached. In this belt of indigenous 

 forest Stink wood must take rank as the most valuable tree. As a 

 furniture wood, it shows fine variations of tint, from a golden yellow 

 through all shades of brown to black. It polishes well and produces 

 exceedingly handsome effects with its different contrasts of colour. 

 But furniture made from Stinkwood is the most expensive that can 

 be purchased in Cape Town, mainly owing to the difficulty of work- 

 iug and the liability of the wood to warp badly. As a wagon wood 

 Stinkwood is sufficiently hard and tough to form one of the best of 

 timbers, and the main use of Stinkwood is for wagon wood. 



Trees up to 60 or 80 feet in height are occasionally seen, but it 

 generally occurs in the forest in the form of clusters of coppice 

 shoots, more or less straight, and more or less sound, but the timber 

 is almost always so irregular in shape that it is difficult to cube a tree 

 as it stands in the forest. > 



Stinkwood has a very weak natural reproduction, and it is hardly 

 possible to propagate it artificially, the fleshy seed being difficult to 

 obtain, and often rotten or worm-eaten as it hangs on the trees. 



The leaf has an aromatic spicy odour. The disgusting smell, 

 from which the tree gets its name, is in the bark and the timber of 

 the green tree, but the effluvia soon passes away from the cut 

 timber. 



