INDO-MALAYAN WOODS. 
543 
EBENACEiE. 
This family is important because it produces the ebony of commerce. 
The sap and heartwood are often very distinct; sapwood white, yellow, 
pink or reddish or gray ; heartwood black or black-streaked, sometimes 
with a greenish tinge. Wood hard to very hard and heavy to very heavy. 
Pores small to moderate-sized, scanty, often in short radial lines which 
are distant and somewhat in echelon, each pore surrounded by a collar 
of wood parenchyma one cell thick. Wood parenchyma in fine, more 
or less regular, sometimes indistinct, joarallel concentric lines. The 
Sapotacece are distinguished from the Ebenacece by having usually red 
or yellow wood, longer radial lines of pores which have a more conspic- 
uously oblique arrangement. Also the SapotacecB do not have the collar 
of wood parenchyma about the pores. 
The different members of the family have such uniform structure 
that it seems impossible to distinguish the different genera and species 
structurally. 
Any member of the family may furnish ebony, if the heartwood is 
sufficiently developed. Many species do furnish ebony, but most of 
them are of small size and so relatively unimportant. The true black 
heartwood seems to be somewhat irregular in occurrence. Occasionally 
a tree of good size seems to lack it entirely. In many cases, old injuries 
are found to be bordered by a small amount of the black heartwood. 
The follnwing statements by Iliern 3 show which are the best known 
commercial species and their region of occurrence. 
The following species supply ebony : 
Diospyros ebenum Konig. India, etc. 
D. melanoxylon Roxb. India. 
D. dendo Welw. Angola, west tropical Africa. 
D. sylvatica Roxb. India, etc. 
D. gardneri Tliw. Ceylon. 
D. hirsuta L. f. Ceylon. 
D. discolor Willd. Malaya, etc. 
D. embryopt'eris Pers. India, etc. 
D. ebenaster Retz. Malaya, etc. 
D. montana Roxb. India, etc. 
D. insignis Thw. Ceylon and southern India. 
D. tupru Ham. India. 
D. mespiliformis Hochst. Tropical Africa. 
D. truncata Zoll. & Mor. Java. 
D. tessellaria Poir. Mauritius. 
D. haplostylis Boiv. Madagascar. 
D. microrhombus. Madagascar. 
D. ramiflora Wall. Northeast India. 
Maba buxifolia Pers. India, Madagascar, etc. 
II. mulala Welw. Angola, west tropical Africa. 
Euclea pseudebenus E. Mey. South Africa. 
3 Hiern, Ebenaceae 29. 
