74 GUIDE TO TIMBERS OF NIGERIA 



camba ; Muti ; Muvule ; N'san ; N'tong ; Oak, African (com.) ; 

 Oak, bush ; Obang ; Oba's-tree ; Odji ; Odom ; Odoum ; 

 Odum ; Ofryio ; Oloko ; Oroko ; Roko and Rokko ; Semen : 

 Ssare and Sserre ; Sime ; Teak, African (com.) ; Tema ; 

 Ukloba ; Uloko ; Ulokoodigpe ; Uloko-nusingbon ; Vai. 



Description of the wood from a specimen, No. 3051 "Odum," 

 received from the Government of the Gold Coast, and another 

 received from the Government of Nigeria, No. 3624. Our 

 specimens Nos. 3067, 0750 HS., 0280 HS. and 2801 HS. from 

 the G.C., No. 2191 HS. " Muvule " from Uganda, sent as 

 Sterculia sp., and No. 0238 " Iroko " and No. 2991 from com- 

 mercial sources, all agree. 



GENERAL CHARACTERS. A moderately hard and heavy wood 

 of a nut-brown colour striated with buff. The colour varies in 

 different specimens from grey through gold to brown. Prain 

 (x. Oliver, VI, p. 22) says, "white soon becoming pale bay." 

 Unwin (1920, p. 253), " yellow-brown to dark-brown (oak 

 to teak-brown.)" Thompson (1908, p. 193), "it becomes 

 almost black." Chevalier (1909, p. 261) ; "pale red, darken- 

 ing on exposure to the air." The wood has a superficial 

 resemblance to Teak. Surface bright, any lustre being due to 

 the ground-tissue (wood-fibres). Grain, coarse, open, inclined ; 

 some zigzag tracery in tangential section. Cool to the touch ; 

 dry; not likely to soil. -Unwin mentions "an oily feel." 

 Shade of the transverse, section much lighter than that of 

 the other sections on account of the quantity of pale soft- 

 tissue (parenchyma). Smell, faint. Weathers to a Vandyke 

 brown. 



STRUCTURE. Resembles that of the Fustic (Madura tlitc- 

 toria). 



Transverse section. (Prepared with glass-paper.) See PI. II, 

 fig. 6. 



Parenchyma of one kind (a) readily visible and even con- 

 spicuous, giving the tone to the section ; colour, light buff. 

 In oblique and also in concentric lines, the latter predominating 

 on the outer side of the ring ; interrupted but joining several 

 groups of pores here and there (up to as many as sixteen groups), 

 but thinning out between the groups to a thickness equal to 

 about a semi-diameter of a large pore ; often anastomosing ; 

 intervals between the lines about equal to two pore-diameters ; 



