AFRICAN BLACK-WOOD 



No. 52. AFRICAN BLACK-WOOD. Dalbergia 

 melanoxylon. Guill. and Perr. 

 PLATE V. FIG. 37. 



Natural Order. Leguminoseae. 



Alternative Names. Ebony in Sierra Leone : Senegal Ebony : 

 African Grendilla-wood (131), Congoholz (131), also Dialamban 

 (107). 



Sources of Supply. Tropical Africa, chiefly the West Coast. 



Physical Characters, etc. Recorded weight 74^ Ibs. per cu. ft. 

 Hardness Grade i, compare Ebony. Smell slightly fragrant. 

 Taste none. Solution with water faint, olive-brown, afterwards 

 with alcohol, deep port -wine colour, strong, nearly black. Burns 

 fairly well with a lively, smoky flame : heat expels a copious, 

 black juice. 



Grain. Coarse but even, the pores being filled up. Surface 

 glassy and cold to the touch like Ebony, but more so : ground very 

 lustrous, pores dull if empty, reflecting when filled. 



Bark. ? 



Uses, etc. Similar to those of Ebony : turnery, Tunbridge- 

 ware, etc. Almost invariably confused with black Ebonies. 



Authorities. Scott-Elliott and Raisin (107). Laslett (160). 

 Wiesner (131), L. 12, p. 943. 



Colour. Jet-black, sometimes brownish-black, similar in all 

 sections. Sharply defined from the narrow brownish- white 

 sap-wood. 



Anatomical Characters. Transverse section : 



Pores. Visible only by reflection : size 2, little variation : 

 evenly distributed but sometimes in zones : 1-12 per mm. : 

 occasionally grouped or subdivided, mostly single but some threes: 

 nearly always with blackish contents. 



Rays. Almost invisible with lens : size 5-6 : equidistant, less 

 than a large pore-width apart, often stopped by the pores not 

 avoiding them, gently undulating : numerous, 8-n per mm. : 

 denser and darker than the ground in the transparent section, 

 invisible in the solid, black wood. 



Rings. Fairly clearly defined near the pith by more numerous 

 pores, almost a pore-ring of several rows followed by an Autumn 

 zone poor in zones (this is difficult to trace in older wood). The 

 prominent pigment-zones are quite independent of the structure. 



Soft-tissue. Abundant in fine, concentric, much-waved, thread- 

 like lines about the size and colour of the rays (5-6 ray-scale) : 

 pigmented, coarse-celled : numerous, about 5-7 per mm. 



Pith. Large, hard, dense deeply waved or crenate. 



Radial Section. Pores inconspicuous, rather coarse lines usually 

 with black contents ; shining, reflect the light upon the su 



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