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The World's Commercial Products 



Ceylon ebony is principally obtained from D. Ebenum, a large evergreen tree which also 

 occurs in Southern India and the Malay Peninsula. The heart wood only is jet black, the 

 sapwood being almost pure white, so that a section of an entire tree presents a most striking 

 contrast. 



Andaman Padauk or Andaman Redwood. This is the principal timber exported from 

 the Andaman Islands, the site of the great Indian convict settlement. The padauk is a very 

 large forest tree, with a very small amount of grey sapwood, whilst the heartwood is bright 

 red with brown and black markings. 



Teak. — The teak tree is one of the most striking of the commercial timber trees of the 

 tropics, its large leaves and huge sprays of light-coloured flowers giving it a very characteristic 

 appearance..: It attains a very large size, trees with clean stems of eighty to ninety feet to 

 the first branch, and a girth of twenty to twenty-five feet, being recorded. 



The area of geographical distribution of the tree includes the greater part of India, Burma, 

 Siam, Cambodia, Cochin China, Java, and other islands of the Dutch Indies. There are planta- 

 tions in India and Java. The timber is of a uniform brown or yellow-brown colour, greasy to 

 the touch, and of about the hardness of oak'. Teak is the principal wood exported from India 

 and Burma, arid most of the supplies come to the United Kingdom. 



Greenheart occurs in British Guiana, Brazil, and other parts of South America. It is 

 a very valuable, hard, heavy, tough, and elastic wood of a dark green to brown colour. 



Lignum Yitae is an extraordinarily hard and heavy wood obtained from Guiacum officinale, 

 a South American and West Indian tree. It is dark brown in colour, with black streaks, but 

 the colour- is often obscured by a sticky green gum which exudes from the cut surface. 



Jarrah is the hard, heavy, dark red wood of Eucalyptus marginata, a native of Western 

 Australia. It attains a very large size, and planks of great breadth can be obtained from it. 

 It is exceedingly durable, and is but little attacked by the boring teredo, so that it makes 

 excellent piles. In this country it is most familiar as paving blocks. 



Karri is very closely related to. Jarrah, and is the timber of Eucalyptus versicolor, locally 

 distributed in Western Australia. 



Mora {Dimorphandra Mora or Mora exc'elsa) is one of the largest trees of British Guiana, 

 and also occurs elsewhere in South America. Its hard, coarse, dark brown or reddish brown 

 timber has long been known in the United Kingdom, and is rated amongst the first-class timbers 

 at Lloyd's for ship-building. It is said to be more durable than teak. 



FIBRES 



Photo by W G. Freeman, Esq. 



THE KAPOK TREE 



The cultivation of fibre-yielding 

 plants and the manufacture 

 of their products into textiles, 

 ropes, cordage, and matting 

 are among the most important 

 industries of the world, and 

 afford employment directly and 

 indirectly to many millions of 

 people. The industries, more- 

 over, are of great antiquity, 

 for we have definite evidence 

 from the Lake Dwellings of 

 Switzerland that flax was culti- 

 vated and used as a textile 

 during the Stone Age, and the 

 occurrence of linen cloth in the 



