THE TIMBERS OF COMMERCE 



Physical Characters, etc. Recorded dry-weight 61 lbs. per 

 cu. ft. Hardness Grade i, compare Black Ebony. Smell slight, 

 like tan when worked. Taste none. Burns well without smell : 

 embers glow in still air. Solution with water brown to claret- 

 colour : alcohol extracts still more. 



Grain. Rather fine : open or close according to the presence 

 or absence of black contents. Surface bright, scarcely lustrous : 

 pores reflect the light like mirrors when filled, especially when 

 dried after moistening. 



Bark.? 



Uses, etc. Turnery, cabinet-making, inlaying, Tunbridge- 

 ware, etc. May be met with in logs 28 in. diameter by 20-30 ft. 

 long. Usually confused with other Ebonies. 



Colour. Mingled black and brown stripes : the black is in 

 smoky (not jet-black), ill-defined, excentric, waved colour-bands 

 (see Rings below). Sap-wood sharply defined from the heart- 

 wood : brown, much like the lighter zones of the heart-wood. 



Anatomical Characters. Transverse section : — 



Pores. Visible in the black wood and even prominent, especi- 

 ally after moistening, owing to the reflection from the contents : 

 size 2-3, little variation : scattered, collected more in some zones 

 than others : few, 1-17 per sq. mm. : here and there in compact, 

 radial, subdivided groups of 2-4 or more rarely 11 : red as well 

 as black resin at times. 



Rays. Difficult to see, size 6, very fine : uniform : evenly dis- 

 tributed : too fine to taper : very numerous, 16-18 per mm. : 

 lighter in colour and denser than the ground-tissue : direct, but 

 running round the larger pores. 



Rings. Doubtful, but many concentric zones of different 

 shades independent of the structure : contour undulating and 

 very irregular : neighbouring bands often meeting and again 

 receding. 



Soft-tissue. Fine concentric lines often interrupted or re- 

 duced to mere bars between the rays : equalling the rays in size : 

 obscure in the solid : coarsely cellular in transparent section, 

 equalling size 7 (pore-scale) : very much waved. 



Pith. Hard, about 2 mm. wide, angular : of very coarse cells. 



Radial Section. Rather lighter in shade : pores readily visible, 

 often shining : filled with black resin, sometimes in granules : 

 rays, readily visible, shining plates (especially when cleft) : 

 rings, alternating bands of brown and black only. 



Tangential Section. As the Radial, but the pores less numer- 

 ous and narrower : rays, on the limit of vision with lens : under 

 the micro, they appear as a single row of rather large cells : 

 height about 1 mm. 



Type specimens from commercial sources not authenticated, 



152 



