I have more than 21 years of experience working with wood and have worked more than 350 different species of wood. I normally keep more than 125 species in stock. I have studied hundreds of woodworking magazine articles and more than 230 books on woodworking by as many as 190 authors. In addition I have studied numerous books and magazine articles on art, business, marketing, advertising and webmastering. I consult with both individuals and companies {World Tree Technologies, Impact Group New York, & B. K. Brown Designs} on the best wood, procedures and finishing techniques to use in the production of their wooden projects or products and how to advertise their products. Facts About Wood & Trees 1Author
Johnny W. MorlanFor several years, I have complied facts on wood and trees. Here are 77 that I will share with you. I add to and update it frequently. Some are pretty astounding. * It is not uncommon for a Pohutukaw, New Zealand Christmas tree {Metrosiderosis excelsa} to have multiple trunks. An ancient Pohutukaw named Te Waha O Rerekohu, is growing on the grounds of the Te Waha O Rerekohu School in Te Araroa that has 22 trunks! It is approximately 65 foot tall and is over 600 years old. * Balsa {Ochroma pyramidale} is the lightest and softest commercially sold wood in the world. It's average specific gravity averages .16. Note: There are 4 other woods that are lighter, but none of them are suitable for any purpose. They are extremely weak and are not actually anything like wood as far as looks, feel and texture. * The world's largest, recorded harvested burl was a Redwood {Sequoia sempervirens}, located near Big Lagoon in Humboldt County, California in 1944. It was approximately 105 foot in circumference {over 33 foot in diameter}, nine feet tall at the crown and weighed 60 tons. Seven redwoods up to six foot in diameter were growing out of it. It took four men about a month to harvest and make it into veneer stock. * Not all species of wood floats in water. In order to sink in water the specific gravity of the wood, has to be 1.00 or more. The 28 below sink. African Blackwood - {Dalbergia melanoxylon}
Billian - {Eusideroxylon zwageri}
Black Ironwood - {Olea laurifolia}
Brazil Ironwood - Caesalpinia ferrea}
Brazilwood - {Caesalpinia echinata}
Burma Ironwood - {Xylia xylocarpa}
Ceylon Ironwood - {Mesua ferrea}
CocoBolo Rosewood - {Dalbergia retusa}
Desert Ironwood - {Olneya tesota}
East Indian Satinwood, Ceylon - {Chloroxylon swietenia}
Ebony - {Diospyrus crassiflora}
Ekki - {Lophira alata}
Greenheart - {Ocotea rodiaei}
IPE - {Tabebuia serratifolia}
Kingwood Rosewood - {Dalbergia cearensis}
Knobthorn - {Acacia nigrescens}
Leadwood - {Krugiodendron ferreum}
Lignum Vitae - {Guaiacum officinale}
Macassar Ebony - {Diospyros celebica}
Marblewood - {Diospyros marmorata}
Mountain Mahogany - {Cercocarpus ledifolius}
Pau d'Arco - {Tabebuia serratifolia}
Quebracho - {Schinopsis balansae}
Satine, Bloodwood - {Brosimum paraense}
Snakewood - {Piratinera guianensis}
Sucupira - {Bowdichia nitida}
White Topped Box. - {Eucalyptus quadrangulata}
Womara - {Swartzia leiocalycina} * Bamboo, although often tree like, is actually not a species of tree. * The whitest wood in the world is Holly {Ilex opaca}. The Silver Striped Holly seems to produce the whitest wood of all the species of Holly. To produce the whitest wood, the best time to cut down Holly tress is in the winter when the sap is lower, and then mill and kiln dry it before summer. * The blackest wood in the world is Ebony {Diospyros crassiflora}. * Not all wood that comes from hardwood {flowering} broadleaf trees is hard and wood that comes from softwood {conifers} cone-bearing trees is soft. There are exceptions to this. For instance Balsa {Ochroma pyramidale} and Basswood {Tilia americana} are hardwoods even though they are extremely soft. The southern pines {Pinus strobus} are softwoods but are moderately hard and much harder than Balsa or Basswood. * Osage Orange {Maclura pomifera} is the species of wood that produces the most heat when burned, approximately 33 million BTU's per 20% air dried moisture content cord. A cord of wood is 4 foot wide x 4 foot high x 8 foot long {128 cubic foot} and has on average 80 cubic foot of burnable wood, the rest is just air space. * The most recently discovered tree specie is the Wollemi Pine, {Wollemia nobilis}. It was discovered in September 1994, by, a New South Wales National Parks officer named David Noble in a secluded area in the Blue Mountains of the Wollemi National Park, approximately 124 miles west of Sydney Australia. The total count of the wild mature trees is fewer than a hundred. The largest one is a little over 131 foot tall and a little short of 4 foot in diameter. The species is from the Araucariaceae family of conifers which are around 200 million years old, one of the oldest on earth. In October of 2005, 292 five year old, 6 foot 6 inch to almost 10 foot tall cultivated Wollemi Pine trees from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney Australia, were auctioned off by Sotheby's Auction House, selling from $2000 - $7000 each, with one bidder paying $115,000 for a set of trees. The auction took in $1.17 million. Sometime in the spring of 2006, Wollemi Pine trees ranging in height from 16 inches to a little under 5 foot will be available to the general public at reasonable prices through retail outlets. * White Oak {Quercus alba} is the species of wood that is easiest to steam bend. With thin stock {1/8 inch or thinner} you can bend it, into an extremely small {tight} radius. * The name Ironwood is actually a slang term given to the hardest wood of an area, region or country. There are over 80 species of wood in the world, referred to or having the word Ironwood in them. * The heaviest and the hardest wood in the world is Snakewood {Piratinera guianensis}. It's specific gravity averages 1.30. * The tree with the world's greatest recorded root depth is a Wild Fig {Ficus natalensis}, located at Echo Caves, close to the town of Ohrigstad, Transvaal, located in South Africa. One of its roots goes down 393 foot 8 3/8 inches. * The Ombu {Phytolacca dioica} tree, looks like a tree but is actually not a tree specie, it is a bush. It grows in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. The Ombu can live with very little water, can survive violent storms, insect attacks and intense heat. Its wood is so moist it will not burn and so spongy the tree can be cut down with a knife. Its trunk can have a diameter of 16 foot and the total overall height can reach 60 foot. * Palm Sunday was named after the Palm tree {Phoenix dactylifera} because people took branches of Palm trees with them to greet Jesus Christ in Jerusalem {John 12:13}. * There are 23 names of trees {below} mentioned in the Bible. The one passage, Isaiah 41:17-20 has seven trees mentioned in it. It reads I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive. I will set pines in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together, so that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the LORD has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it. Acacia - {Acacia confusa} - Isaiah 41:17 - 20
Almond - {Amygdalus communis} - Numbers 17:1 - 8
Almug - {Pterocarpus santalinus} - 1 Kings 10:1 - 13
Apple - {Malus communis} - Joel 1:2 - 12
Broom - {Juniperus communis} - Psalm 120:4
Cedar - {Cedrus libani} - 1 Kings 6:1 - 38
Citron - {Ttetraclinis articulata} - Revelation 18:11 - 13
Cypress - {Cupressus macrocarpa} - Isaiah 41:17 - 20
Ebony - {Dalbergia melanoxylon} - Ezekiel 27:12 - 24
Fig - {Ficus carica} - Micah 4:1 - 5
Fir - {Abies cilicia} - Isaiah 41:17 - 20
Myrtle - {Myrtus communis} - Isaiah 41:17 - 20
Oak - {Quercus coccinea} - Ezekiel 27:1 - 9
Olive - {Olea europaea} - Deuteronomy 8:1 - 9
Palm, Edible Date Palm {Phoenix dactylifera} - John 12:13
Pine - {Pinus pinea} - 1 Kings 6:23 - 35
Planetree - {Platanus orientalis} - Genesis 30:25 - 43
Pomegranate - {Punica granatum} - 1 Samuel 14:1 - 3
Poplar - {Populas alba} - Psalm 137:1 - 3
Shittim, Setim - {Acacia seyal} - Exodus 26:15 - 28
Sycamore - {Acer pseudoplatanus} - Luke 19:4 - 6
Terebinth - {Pistacia terebinthus} - Hosea 4:10 - 13
Willow - {Salix safsaf} - Ezekiel 17:1 - 8 * The world's tallest natural uncut and living Christmas tree is 276 foot. It is a Eucalyptus {Eucalyptus regnansis} located in the Styx Valley, a tract of ancient forest in Tasmania, Australia. To date, the world's tallest cut down and decorated Christmas tree was a Fir of 215 foot. It was used to celebrate the Christmas of 1950 in the city of Seattle Washington. * The world's shortest tree specie is the Dwarf {Least} Willow {Salix herbacea}. It is rare to find one more than 2 1/2 inches tall. They are also dioecious, producing both male, yellow colored and female, red colored catkins. They have been found growing on frozen tundra in the Arctic. * The tree specie with the thickest bark is the Redwood {Sequoia gigantean}, its bark can be up to 24 inches thick. * The tree specie with the thickest bark other than a Redwood {Sequoia gigantea}, is the Coast Douglas Fir tree {Pseudotsuga menziesii}. On the older trees, the bark can be 8 - 12 inches thick. * The tree specie that produces the largest cones is the Sugar Pine {Pinus lambertiana}, ranging in size from 12 to 24 inches in length and 4 to 5 inches in diameter. * Lignin is the substance found in wood that helps determine how hard the wood will be. The more Lignin present, the harder the wood and vice versa, the less present, the softer the wood. * The bark of the Cork Oak {Quercus suber} is used to produce cork wine stoppers). The species grows in Northwest Africa and Southwest Europe with Algeria, Morocco, Portugal and Spain, manufacturing the majority of the world's supply. * Up until a few years ago, the world's oldest living tree, a Bristlecone Pine {Pinus longaeva}, named the Methuselah was located in the Great Basin National Park, California. It is approximately 4,844 years old. It is also the tallest living {55 foot} Bristlecone Pine. Now there may be at least two trees that are older! With John White's refined measurement techniques of today {see below}, The Lime {Tilia cordata}, in the Silkwood at Westonbirt Arboretum (Near Tetbury, Gloucester, U.K.) is probably around 6000 years old. The Fortingall Yew {Taxus baccata}, in Glen Lyon, Perthshire, Scotland, might be as much as 9000 years old. The usual way of calculating a trees age by counting the annual rings in the trunk or by carbon dating, are not accurate when it comes to Yews because a Yews trunk tends to hollow with age, while it continues to grow by rooting its branches and wrapping them around itself. There is even documentation of the formation of aerial roots growing inside the hollow trunk. Another reason are Yews have been known to stop growing for long periods of time, {documented 325 years}, thus having no growth rings for that period. John White's method of estimating a tree's age is by measuring its trunk circumference approximately 5 feet from ground level. He had access to and studied more than 100,000 tree measurements and multitudes of growth ring patterns from broken or cutoff stumps and concluded that growth rings are closer together on the outside portion of the stump. His technique shows that trees grow at different rates in the three phases of their lifetime, Formative, Middle Age and Senescence (Old Age}. With the evidence he has complied, tables of expected growth, relative to trunk size have been made for numerous common trees. * There are two types of trees that it is impossible to tell how old they are by counting their growth rings. Trees produce growth rings because of the distinguishable temperature changes that occur over a yearly cycle causing their growth to slow down and speed up. Trees in certain tropical regions that have a consistent year round climate where growth is ongoing do not form pronounced growth rings. Trees that are endogenous, the majorities of which is some specie of Palm tree {Arecaceae, Palmae or Palm Family), which grow by adding new material inwards, do not produce growth rings. * In 1964, after his coring tool broke and getting permission from the U.S. Forest Service, a research scientist to get an accurate age measurement cut down a Bristlecone Pine {Pinus longaeva}, in Great Basin National Park, since named Prometheus! It turned out the tree was over 4,950 years old making it older than the Bristlecone Pine named Methuselah, which at the time was 4,803 years old. He had not only found the oldest living thing on the planet, but he had also killed it. A cross-section of the tree is on view at the Great Basin National Parks, visitor center in California. Continued On Facts About Wood & Trees 2 |