78 GUIDE TO TIMBERS OF NIGERIA 



Density, No. 3612, 0-78, or about 48 i- Ib. per cu. ft. 



Apara. Not identified. 



This wood, No. 3619, received from the Government of 

 Nigeria (Benin, No. XII), listed as Pentaclethra macrophylla 

 and marked " Apara " on the plank, cannot be that species. 

 The native name is common to several species, and we imagine 

 that an error has occurred in consequence. Amongst others, 

 Hexalobus crispiflorus, A. Rich., passes by the name " Apara," 

 and the specimen 3619 corresponds very well to the description 

 given by Chevalier (1917, p. 49) of that species ; the bark and 

 the density respond to the same despription. We throw this 

 out as a suggestion. 



GENERAL CHARACTERS. A moderately hard and heavy wood 

 of a dirty- white colour. Surface dull ; grain, coarse, open 

 and fairly straight ; not cold to the touch, dry, soils readily. 

 Shade of all sections somewhat similar. Smell, none when 

 dry. 



STRUCTURE. Strongly recalls that of the Sapotaceae, especi- 

 ally Mimusops. 



Transverse section. (Prepared with broken glass.) 



Parenchyma of two kinds : (a) narrowly sheathing the vessels 

 and light in colour, and (b) in exceedingly numerous tangential 

 bars from ray to ray, of a darker colour, at very regular intervals 

 slightly less than those between the rays with which they make 

 a very regular network ; the bars are rather less than the rays 

 in thickness. The area occupied by the whole of the parenchyma 

 and the vessels is about one-quarter of the section. 



Vessels just visible as perforations, and, on account of their 

 parenchyma and arrangement, even prominent ; size uniform ; 

 distribution characteristic, in echelon, the groups being linked 

 up into long, straggling, radial, dendritic lines. Very unevenly 

 scattered, there being areas of at least a sq. mm. without a 

 single vessel, up to 24 per sq. mm. Few if any single pores, 

 mostly radial groups of threes and fours. Shape, round or 

 broadly oval ; occasional black contents. 



Rays visible with lens, very fine ; colour as the parenchyma 

 (b) ; sub-regular in size and spacing, being at intervals from 

 twice to three times their own width ; weak ; 12-16 per mm. 

 Proportion of the mass of the wood about one-third. 



