Pterocarpus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

iPterocarpus
Red Sandalwood Pterocarpus santalinus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Fabales Family: Fabaceae Subfamily: Faboideae Tribe: Dalbergieae Genus: Pterocarpus
Species
Including: P. dalbergioides (Andaman padauk) P. indicus (narra) P. erinaceus (muninga) P. macrocarpus (Burmese padauk) P. soyauxii (African padauk) P. santalinus (red sandalwood)

Pterocarpus is a pantropical genus of some twenty species. A surprising proportion of these yield attractive and valuable timber. The timber of most species is traded as padauk (with an adjective). Other, non-padauk, woods include:

• The famous red sandalwood (sometimes "red sanders wood") is yielded by Pterocarpus santalinus. As a timber it is equal to the finest of rosewoods and is found in classic Chinese furniture (as historic Zitan wood). It is CITES-listed.

• The wood known in Indonesia as amboyna is the burl of Pterocarpus indicus, called so after the isle of Ambon where much of this material was originally found. Often it is finely sliced to produce an extremely decorative veneer, used for decoration and in making of furniture and keys on a marimba. Timber without the burl figure is often sold under the name, Narra.

• One of the premium African furniture timbers, brown in color is muninga or bloodwood from Pterocarpus angolensis.

Most Pterocarpus woods contain either water or alcohol soluble substances and can be used as dyes.

In China, a Pterocarpus wood is used in the hexagonal body of special Beijing Opera-instrument: jinghu, a two-string bowed fiddle, as well as other Chinese fiddles. This belongs to a family of bowed lutes known as huqin.