African Blackwood -(Dalbergia melanoxylon) - also known as Grenadilla, or Mpingo is a flowering tree 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 20-45' 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 flowers are white, produced in dense clusters. The fruit is a pod 3–7 cm long, containing one to two seeds.
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, transverse flutes, piccolos, Highland pipes, and Northumbrian pipes. Furniture makers from the time of the Egyptians have valued this timber. A story states that it has even been used as ballast in trading ships and that some enterprising Northumbrian pipe makers used old discarded Blackwood ballast to great effect.
I find this wood to be one of the hardest to photograph. But on the the most beautiful to turn.
It is a small tree, reaching 20-45' 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 flowers are white, produced in dense clusters. The fruit is a pod 3–7 cm long, containing one to two seeds.
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, transverse flutes, piccolos, Highland pipes, and Northumbrian pipes. Furniture makers from the time of the Egyptians have valued this timber. A story states that it has even been used as ballast in trading ships and that some enterprising Northumbrian pipe makers used old discarded Blackwood ballast to great effect.
I find this wood to be one of the hardest to photograph. But on the the most beautiful to turn.