Description: Heartwood is salmon red to orange brown when fresh, becoming russet to reddish brown when seasoned; often marked with dry streaks.

Sizes available: 4/4, 5/4

Mechanical Properties: Janka side harness at 12% moisture content 2,350 to 3,290 lb.. Shrinkage green to ovendry: radial 4.5%; tangential 8.5%; volumetric 12.7%

Working Properties: The wood is moderately difficult to saw and machine largely because of its high density, but except in planing it can be machined to a smooth surface. The wood is somewhat difficult to plane because of the interlocked grain. It is easy to glue and finish satisfactorily: steam-bending properties comparable to white oak.

Durability: Laboratory evaluations rate the wood very resistant to brown-rot and white-rot fungi; actual field exposure trials also are the wood as very durable. heartwood is also rated very resistant to dry-wood termites; little resistance to marine borers.

Uses: Hardwood flooring, furniture and cabinet work, decking

The preceding information comes from "Tropical Timbers of the World", United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Agriculture Handbook Number 607, September 1984. Martin Chudnoff, Forest Products Technologist (retired), Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, Wis.