COCUS OR COCOS WOOD 



Lignum-vitae : Billy-web in Honduras (46). American Ebony 

 (131). Not the Coco-wood of Gamble (48), nor Kokkra-wood 

 (Kew. Mus.). 



Sources of Supply. Tropical America and the West Indies, 

 chiefly Jamaica. 



Physical Characters, etc. Recorded dry-weight 77-87 lb. per 

 cu. ft. Hardness Grade 1, compare Ebony. Smell or taste 

 none. Burns well, ignites slowly : embers glow in still air. 

 Solution with water none : with alcohol brown. 



Grain. Very fine, dense and even. Surface dull and cold 

 to the touch. 



Bark. About i in. thick, light grey, brown or white, peels 

 in strips like bast : fissured and laminated. 



Uses. "Turnery, flageolets, inlaying, cabinet-making, 

 turnery'' (60). Durable (64). Planes smoothly, a choice turner's 

 wood but high in price. 



Cocus is often confused with Partridge-wood, which is fre- 

 quently substituted for it. 



Authorities. Kew Cat. (57), p. 41. J. Leman (64). Royle 

 (in Holtzapffel) (48), p. 81. Wiesner (131), L. 12, p. 924. Laslett 

 (60), p. 29b. 



Colour. Heart-wood dark, rich brown almost black: very 

 sharply defined from the sulphur-yellow sap-wood, which is about 

 $-f inch wide. 



Anatomical Characters. Transverse section : — 



Pores. Need lens, rather fine, size 4, slightly variable : 

 scattered and rare, 1-7 per sq. mm. : appear of a lighter brown 

 in the brown bands, almost imperceptible in the black ones : 

 in short, sub-divided groups. 



Rays. Need lens, very fine, size 6, uniform : equidistant : 

 less dense than the ground-tissue : very numerous, 7-9 per mm. : 

 brown but scarcely discernible in the solid wood in the black 

 zones : a pore-width or less apart, rarely if ever avoiding them. 



Rings. Apparently clear but the boundary is not perceptible 

 with the lens : many alternate bands of rich brown and black 

 which do not indicate the year's growth. 



Soft-tissue. In concentric lines as fine as the rays and equally 

 abundant making a network with them : prominent with lens 

 in the brown zones : also encircling the pores. 



Radial Section. Considerably lighter in shade than the Trans- 

 verse section, often purplish-brown. Pores, very fine, cellular 

 lines containing minute drops of blackish resin (not to be con- 

 fused with the blackish lines of soft-tissue, see below). Rays, 

 minute almost indistinguishable flakes. Rings not perceptible, 

 but the zones of colour clear ; black alternating with brown or 

 brownish-purple. Soft- tissue, visible only in the zones corres- 



97 h 



