TEAK G.N. 5702 



TEAK 



Tectona grandis Linn. Verbenacese. 



A rather hard, heavy wood of a uniform rich brown colour to neutral 

 brown : grain coarse, open and straight. Structure clearly visible. Smell 

 when worked, like leather. Greasy to the touch. 



Transverse section. Boundary a very clear fine line of light-coloured 

 parenchyma accompanied by a scanty ring of pores, together giving the 

 wood the appearance of being ring-porous. 



Parenchyma otherwise scanty, surrounding the vessels (vasicentric), 

 hardly visible with lens. Sometimes the parenchyma joins up a few 

 vessels in the late Autumn wood. 



Vessels visible individually, those of the pore-ring larger than the 

 rest. Those of the later wood diminishing abruptly immediately outside 

 the pore-ring and afterwards more gradually, outwards. Very few and 

 widely isolated in the outer zone with a tendency to leave rounded empty 

 spaces. Mostly single, a few twinned. Contents often white (said to be 

 phosphate of lime or apatite). 



Rays scarcely visible, very fine, sub-regular in size and spacing, at 

 intervals of about the width of a vessel apart. 



Radial section. Boundary, the coarser lines of vessels. Rays, fairly 

 conspicuous, narrow flakes visible chiefly by reflection. 



Tangential section. Boundary indicated by the fringes only, as a rule. 

 The parenchyma may be prominent at times, and obscure at others. 

 Rays, minute, needing lens. 



May be confused with: May be distinguished by: 



Elm (concentric lines of vessels Vessels isolated in the Autumn 



in the Autumn wood). wood. 



Mulberry when darkened by ex- Wood brown throughout : smell 



posure (wood greenish- white when offensive : surface greasy, 

 freshly cut. Smell, none: surface 

 clean). 



Oaks and Chestnut (radial streams Vessels isolated in the Autumn 



of vessels in transverse section). wood. 



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