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Mr. Allen Ransome tested some specimens sent to the Colonial and Indian 
Exhibition. He thus reports : 
A beautifully figured brown wood. The sample sent, being very wet, was tried under somewhat 
unfavourable circumstances. A baluster was turned from it, and some boards and panels planed, the 
work from both lathe and planing machine being excellent. The wood should prove valuable for cabinet¬ 
makers, but should be thoroughly seasoned before being used, as it shrinks very much in drying. 
I have already alluded to seasoning in connection with this timber, but 
Mr. Ransome’s specimen, Ci being very wet,” is hardly a fair one from which to 
draw conclusions. In the building of the Austral Banking Company, in Phillip- 
street, Sydney, I have seen black bean used for framing twelve months after felling, 
and it was standing splendidly two years afterwards. A piece of black bean, bone 
dry, having been seasoned over 25 years, has a weight which corresponds to 39 lb. 
8 oz. per cubic foot; but as a rule the timber is heavier than this. Although the 
great use and value of this timber is for cabinet work, yet it has been used for 
rougher work. I am informed that on the Tweed River it has been used for 
culverts, and when free from sap it lasts well underground. Mr. Forester Pope, of 
Murwillumbah, also reports : 
Very durable ; will last any number of years under the ground. 
This is more satisfactory, as for many years it was not considered to be a 
durable timber. It is also used for staves. The sapwood is white and thick, and of 
all the hundreds of New South Wales timbers with which I am acquainted, I know 
of no other sapwood, other than that of Spotted Gum, so readily attacked and so 
promptly destroyed by borers as this one. Insects speedily reduce it to a flour-like 
substance. 
Exudations. —A gum from this tree was shown in the New South Wales 
Court at the Paris Exhibition, 1867, but I cannot find any account of it, and it 
does not appear to have been examined. The bark of this tree is often glazed in 
patches with a gummy exudation, but I have not been able to get a quantity 
approximately pure. It is not likely to have commercial value as it does not appear 
to be soluble, but the samples seen may have been those from which the soluble 
portion had been washed away by the rain, leaving the insoluble, or metarabic 
portion. 
Dr. Lauterer (see p. 167) gives a note on it. 
Size.— A fair average height for the bean tree would be 60 feet or 70 feet, 
with a trunk diameter of 2 feet or 3 feet. At the same time it frequently attains a 
height of nearly double this, with a diameter of 5 feet or 6 feet. 
Habitat .—It is usually found growing in brush land of the very richest 
soil, usually near the banks of rivers in the Clarence, Richmond, and Tweed River 
districts, but frequently in the scrub, a considerable distance from creeks and rivers. 
It comes as far south as the well-known Don Dorrigo Forest Reserve, in the 
Bellinger River district. It is also found in Queensland, extending a considerable 
distance along the coast districts, right into the tropics. 
