| African Blackwood |
Article Index for African |
Website Links For African |
Information AboutAfrican Blackwood |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT AFRICAN BLACKWOOD | |
| faboideae | |
| trees of africa | |
| wood | |
African Blackwood or '''Mpingo''' (''Dalbergia melanoxylon'') is a Flowering Plant in the family Fabaceae , native to seasonally dry regions of Africa from Senegal east to Eritrea and south to the Transvaal in South Africa . It is a small Tree , reaching 4-15 m tall, with grey Bark and Spiny shoots. The Leaves are Deciduous in the Dry Season , alternate, 6-22 cm long, pinnate, with 6-9 alternately arranged leaflets. The Flower s are white, produced in dense clusters. The Fruit is a Pod 3-7 cm long, containing one to two Seed s. Uses The dense, lustrous Wood ranges from reddish to pure black. It is generally cut into small billets or logs with its sharply demarcated bright yellow white sapwood left on to assist in the slow drying so as to prevent cracks developing. Good quality "A" grade African Blackwood commands high prices on the commercial timber market. The tonal qualities of African Blackwood are particularly valued when used in woodwind instruments, principally clarinets, oboes and Northumbrian pipes. Furniture makers from the time of the Egyptians have valued this timber. A story states that it has been even been used as ballast in trading ships and that some enterprising Northumbrian pipe makers used old discarded Blackwood ballast to great effect. Due to overuse, the mpingo tree is now commerically extinct in Kenya and severely threatened in Tanzania and Mozambique. The trees are being harvested at an unsustainable rate, partly because the tree takes 70-100 years to mature. Relation to other woods
NAMES Other names by which the tree is known include ''babanus'' and ''grenadilla'', which appear as Loanword s in various local Englishes. REFERENCES AND EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|