360 lx. VEKBENACEiE. [TectotuL 



stock increases in size every year by the action of the shoots which come up, 

 and at last, often after the lapse of many years, it produces a shoot strong enough 

 to outlive the fire. Thus in many cases what appears a seedling plant of Teak 

 is really a coppice-shoot from a thick gnarled root-stock, bearing the scars of 

 successive generations of shoots, which were burnt down by the annual fires. 

 The coppice-shoots of Teak attain a large size, and form good serviceable 

 timber. 



The bark of the stem is about \ in. thick, grey or brownish-grey, with shal- 

 low longitudinal wrinkles or furrows, peeling off in long narrow thin pieces. 

 The sapwood is white, narrow ; the heartwood, when a green tree is cut, has a 

 pleasant and strong aromatic fragrance, and a beautiful dark golden-yellow 

 colour, which on seasoning soon darkens into brown, mottled with darker 

 streaks. The timber retains its aromatic fragrance to a great age, whenever 

 a fresh cut is made. It is marked by large pores, mostly single, rarely in groups 

 of 2-3, unequal in size, and unequally distributed, more numerous and larger in 

 the inner part of each annual ring (the spring wood), less numerous and smaller 

 in the outer belt ; the medullary rays are fine. On a vertical section the pores 

 are distinctly marked. The annual rings of Teak are fairly distinct. When 

 collecting the data in 1856 for the first regular plan for working the British 

 Burma forests, I was doubtful whether the concentric rings visible in the wood 

 corresponded with the annual increment of the tree. This question has now 

 been set at rest by the examination of sections of numerous trees of known age, 

 grown in gardens and plantations, and they may now be taken as a safe guide 

 for determining the rate of growth of the tree. The average weight of seasoned 

 Teak fluctuates between 38 and 45 lb., and the value of P. between 500 and 

 700. The experiments on record tend to show that the Burma wood is some- 

 what lighter than the wood from the Anamallays, Malabar, and other forests 

 on the west side of India ; but the weight of timber depends so much upon 

 the degree of seasoning, that in order fully to establish a difference in the weight 

 of the wood produced in different forest tracts, fresh comparative experiments 

 with timber, dried artificially in the same manner, will have to be made. The 

 following is a brief abstract of the results of the experiments at present avail- 

 able, omitting those where one or two experiments only are on record : 



Burma, 94exper. by various authors, weight 42.63 lb., value of P. 651 



Western coast, 14 44.41 665 



Nagpore, 4 Capt. Fowke, 41.10 472 



Half-seasoned timber from different sources, 4 exp. 46.81 591 



The first item includes 18 exp. made by me in 1864 at Calcutta, with the 

 assistance of Mr Clifford and Baboo Tincowry Ghose, giving an average weight 

 of 40.24 lb., and value of P. = 567, as well as 46 exp. made by us in 1865, giving 

 37.71 lb., and 654 as the average value of P. A series of interesting experiments 

 made by Capt. Simpson with different descriptions of Teak imported at Moul- 

 mein, is recorded in Balfour's Timber Trees, 2d edit., p. 276, of which the fol- 

 lowing is an abstract : 



Good timber, killed (by girdling), 13 exp., weight 43.5 lb., value of P. 478 



Young timber, 4 



Large (old), 8 



Dead timber (nathat), not killed, 5 



The difference in these results may to a certain extent be accidental, for the 

 variations in different specimens of timber from the same source are very great; 

 but the fact that the timber of old trees, and of trees which had died naturally, 

 is lighter than that of younger trees, seems not unlikely. In conclusion, the 

 result of Skinner's experiments should be mentioned :- 



