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i^^i United States III Department of ° Agriculture Forest Service Agriculture Handbool< Number 607

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United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service Agriculture Handbook Number 607 September 1984

Tropical Timbers of the World
Martin Chudnoff Forest Products Technologist (retired) Forest Products Laboratory Madison, Wis.

Chudnoff,Martin. Tropical timbers of the world. Agrie. Handb, 607 Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service; 1984. 466 p. Contains descriptions of 370 species or generic groupings of tropical trees and their timbers grouped by regional origin: Tropical America, Africa, and Southeast Asia and Oceania. Standardized descriptions emphasize physical and mechanical properties, processingcharacteristics, and uses. Data have been compiled, evaluated, and synthesized from the world literature. Extensive tables of technical data are coded to permit easy comparison of species properties and to aid in the selection of woods most suitable for particular end uses.

Keywords:
Tropical wood, tropical species, trade names, working properties, wood durability, mechanical properties, specificgravity, tree product yield, wood-drying, preservation, uses.

Acknowledgment

Sincere thanks to Dr. Robert C. Koeppen of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Products and Engineering Research Staff, for review of the technical data and nomenclature in this work.
Requests for copies of illustrations contained in this handbook should be directed to the Forest ProductsLaboratory, USDA Forest Service, P.O. Box 5130, Madison, Wl 53705.

Foreword

Few days go by at the Forest Products Laboratory without questions from around the world about properties and uses of tropical woods. Interspersed with the queries about such U.S. species as Douglas-fir and white oak are requests about arariba from Brazil, sipo from Ivory Coast, or kapur from Malaya. Such questionscome logically to the Forest Products Laboratory, because it is the official wood identification arm of the Federal government. In the more than 70 years the laboratory has been answering such questions, research concentration has been primarily on determining properties and uses for U.S. species. But as lumber imports from the tropics are increasing, so are questions about foreign woods. Asinternational trade increases, people need more information on exotic species, their properties, and what woods can be substituted for those no longer available. To answer these questions, information has to be gleaned from publications by other scientists around the world. The average person who needs technical data does not have access to the hundreds of rare publications that contain the information.Even if such documentation were pulled together from a variety of sources, the seeker might discover the information was given in several languages and often based on nonuniform test methods, descriptions, or measurements. How can one compare and choose? To fill this need, Martin Chudnoff has compiled information on the better known tropical species, put the data on a common basis, and assembled itin a brief, useful form. To accomplish this, he drew on his training as a forester and wood technologist and his many years of forest products research in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. This volume is the product of his dedicated work. Max A. Davidson Forest Products Laboratory, retired

IV

Contents

Introduction Filling a Need Reporting Format Literature Cited—IntroductionPart I—Tropical American Species Tree and Wood Characteristics Literature Cited—Tropical American Species Part II—African Species Tree and Wood Characteristics Literature Cited—African Species Part III—Southeast Asian and Oceanian Species Tree and Wood Characteristics Literature Cited—Southeast Asian and Oceanian Species Part IV—Comparative Tables of Properties and End Uses Explanatory Notes for...