THE TIMBERS OF COMMERCE 



none. Taste slightly insipid. Burns well and quietly, embers 

 glow in still air. Solution with water clear red resembling the 

 colour of the wood. 



Grain. Extremely fine though open. Surface scarcely bright : 

 rays dull : pores shining : ground a little brighter. 



Bark. ? (The surface of the log under the bark is finely striated) . 



Uses, etc. " Cabinet making, turnery, wheels : durable in the 

 wet. A tree from 15-60 ft. high by 1^-2 ft. diam." (57). An 

 excellent turner's wood : well worth importing. 



Authorities. Kew Guide (59), p. 33. Laslett (60), p. 304. 

 Ditto (61), p. 438. Cape S.A. (19). 



Colour. Red like Apple-tree wood but deeper. Sap-wood 

 similar but lighter, not denned from the heart-wood. 



Pores. Just visible from their lighter colour, size 4, little 

 variation : evenly distributed : sometimes arranged in loose 

 strings : a narrow zone poor in pores : numerous, 40-50 per mm. : 

 single, rarely grouped, occasional twos and threes, not sub- 

 divided ; longish-oval. 



Rays. On the limit of vision, size 5-6 : in appearance two 

 sizes, but the smaller are the much attenuated ends of the larger, 

 giving the impression that there are many small between the 

 large ones : " ends " much less than a pore-width apart, 19-27 

 per mm. : "middles" a large pore-width apart, 3-5 per mm. : 

 very lax and large-celled. 



Rings. Fairly clear, the boundary a narrow band of darker 

 and denser wood : contour gently undulating. 



Soft-tissue. In scattered single cells. 



Pith. ? 



Radial Section. Quite uniform in colour : pores scarcely 

 visible : rays rather prominent from their deeper colour, though 

 small : they make a pretty silver-grain : rings just traceable. 



Tangential Section. As the Radial, but the rays appear as 

 large, red, spindle-shaped lines of coarse, round cells filled with 

 red gum : about 0*5 mm. high ; rings a little clearer where the 

 loops show broadly. 



Type Specimen. A portion of a log sent to the Colonial and 

 Indian Exhibition. 



No. 95. CORKWOOD. Weinmannia rubifolia. 

 Benth. 



Plate VII. Fig. 63. 

 Natural Order. Saxifrageae. 



Alternative Names. Marara (85) in N.S.W., not in Queens- 

 land. It is not the Corkwood of Dominica (Ochroma Lagopus) 



no 



