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Caesalpinia Sapp an, L. Sappan Wood. 
A small thorny tree occurring along river banks in Pahang and 
elsewhere. It is raised readily from seed, and grows fairly fast, 
springing up again when cut down. Sapwood white, heartwood 
dark red, hard. Weight 38 lbs. 8 ozs. 
It is chiefly known as a dye-wood, for which it is sometimes ex- 
ported but also is used for cabinet work, in Java (Van Eeden ) 
Peltophorum ferrngineum Benth. Batai, Alai. 
A very handsome tree about 40 feet tall with yellow flowers, 
common in Malacca. 
Sapwood white, heartwood red strong and said to be nearly as 
good as Merabau, for building and boats, giving beams 5 to 6 
inches square. The heartwood also gives a dye used for dyeing 
cloth. I have never seen trees of any great size and it is apt to 
branch rather low and irregularly so as not to give timber big 
enough for beams of full size. The wood of a specimen grown 
in Singapore is pale reddish, fairly heavy with very fine and close 
rays, pores in rows medium size, and distinct rings. 
Koompassia malaccensis , Maingay. Kumpas. 
A gigantic tree with smooth grey bark and buttresses. It attains 
a height of over 100 feet and a diameter of stem of 5 feet or more. 
It is very common, and is often left by jungle clearers on account 
of the hardness of its wood and may be commonly seen standing in 
cleared ground when all the rest of the forest has long disappeared. 
J he timber is usually reckoned to be worthless except for char- 
coal, of which it supplies an exceedingly good quality. It is com- 
monly stated that the wood splits on exposure and becomes 
useless. Newton states that the wood was formerly in great 
request and much esteemed, and mentions that the tie-beams of 
the Singapore Town Hal! were made of this wood and in 1879 
were found to be riddled by termites. He states that it possesses 
considerable stiffness and transverse strength. Malays say that 
it will not stand changes of wet and dry, that is to say exposure. 
At the same time, its fine colour and figure would make it suitable 
for furniture and in door work. Certainly it will last for an excep- 
tionally long time under very unusual circumstances. I have seen 
old stumps which must have been felled many years ago and yet 
are even now too hard to cut with the axe. And in making an 
excavation for a pond in the Gardens there was found imbedded in 
mud some feet below the surface a Kumpass tree which though 
black was yet hard enough to give some trouble to cut. This 
ground had been forest some fifty years ago and as this tree had 
been covered with a deep layer of blue mud, on which a good deal 
of vegetation had grown, it must have fallen some years previously. 
Another illustration of the durability of this wood may be seen in 
an old stump about 10 feet tall in the Botanic Gardens. This is 
the remains of a tree which must have been felled years ago, 
before the founding of the Gardens, Parts of it are still so hard 
that they turn the edge of an axe, and where it can be cut the 
