Pterocarpus is a pantropical genus of trees in the family Fabaceae. It belongs to the subfamily Faboideae, and was recently assigned to the informal monophyletic Pterocarpus clade within the Dalbergieae. Most species of Pterocarpus yield valuable timber traded as padauk, usually pronounced or ; other common names are mukwa or narra. The west African species may be traded as African rosewood. P. santalinus also yields the most precious red sandalwood in China known as Zitan. The wood from the narra tree and the Burmese padauk tree is marketed as amboyna when it has grown in the burl form. The scientific name is Latinized Ancient Greek and means "wing fruit", referring to the unusual shape of the seed pods in this genus.
Brachystegia spiciformis, commonly known as zebrawood, or msasa, is a medium-sized African tree having compound leaves and racemes of small fragrant green flowers. The tree is broad and has a distinctive amber and wine red colour when the young leaves sprout during spring (August–September). It grows in savanna, both open woodland and closed woodland of Southern and Eastern Africa, mostly Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique. The word msasa is commonly used as a proper name in African place names. The word also means 'rough plant' in Swahili. Other common names: mundu, myombo, mtondo (Tanzania), muputu (Zambia). The plant is known in the Venda language as mutsiwa, which means 'the one that is left behind'. An outlying population of Brachystegia has recently been discovered in the Soutpansberg mountains of northern South Africa. This tree is a protected species in South Africa.
Pterocarpus indicus is a species of Pterocarpus native to southeastern Asia, northern Australasia, and the western Pacific Ocean islands, in Cambodia, southernmost China, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Ryukyu Islands, the Solomon Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Rosewood is any of a number of richly hued hardwoods, often brownish with darker veining, but found in other colours. It is hard, tough, strong, and dense. True rosewoods come from trees of the genus Dalbergia, but other woods are often called rosewood. Rosewood takes a high polish and is used for luxury furniture-making, flooring, musical instruments, and turnery.
Dipteryx is a genus containing a number of species of large trees and possibly shrubs. It belongs to the "papilionoid" subfamily – Faboideae – of the family Fabaceae. This genus is native to South and Central America and the Caribbean. Formerly, the related genus Taralea was included in Dipteryx.
Leucaena leucocephala is a small fast-growing mimosoid tree native to southern Mexico and northern Central America and is now naturalized throughout the tropics including parts of Asia.
Pterocarpus marsupium, also known as Malabar kino, Indian kino, Vijayasar, or Venkai is a medium to large, deciduous tree that can grow up to 31 m (102 ft) tall. It is native to India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.
Vachellia tortilis, widely known as Acacia tortilis but now attributed to the genus Vachellia, is the umbrella thorn acacia, also known as umbrella thorn and Israeli babool, a medium to large canopied tree native to most of Africa, primarily to the savanna and Sahel of Africa, but also occurring in the Middle East.
Bloodwood is a common name for several unrelated trees, including:
Pterocarpus angolensis is a species of Pterocarpus native to southern Africa, in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Eswatini, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. It is a protected tree in South Africa. The name Kiaat, although Afrikaans, is sometimes used outside South Africa as well. In Zimbabwe, depending on what region you are in, it is known as Mukwa or Mubvamaropa.
Prosopis glandulosa, commonly known as honey mesquite, is a species of small to medium-sized, thorny shrub or tree in the legume family (Fabaceae).
Tipuana tipu, also known as tipa, rosewood and pride of Bolivia, is a South American tree.
Pterocarpus macrocarpus, or Burma padauk, is a tree native to the seasonal tropical forests of southeastern Asia: in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. It has been naturalized in India and the Caribbean.
Caragana arborescens, the Siberian peashrub, Siberian pea-tree, or caragana, is a species of legume native to Siberia and parts of China and neighboring Mongolia and Kazakhstan. It was taken to the United States by Eurasian immigrants, who used it as a food source while travelling west. In some areas of the United States it is considered an invasive species. Introduced on the Canadian prairies in the 1880's, the hardy caragana provided shelter-belts, wildlife habitat, nitrogen fixation, and wind-breaks to prevent soil erosion and snow drifting.
Acacia salicina is a thornless species of Acacia tree native to Australia.
Pterocarpus santalinus, with the common names red sanders, red saunders, Yerra Chandanam, Chenchandanam, red sandalwood, Rakta Chandana, and saunderswood, is a species of Pterocarpus endemic to the southern Eastern Ghats mountain range of South India. This tree is valued for the rich red colour of its wood, and in recent years there has been a marked uptick in the use of red sandalwood as a component of incense, especially in the west. The tree is not to be confused with the aromatic Santalum sandalwood trees that grow natively in Southern India.
The legume Sesbania bispinosa, also known as Sesbania aculeata (Willd.) Pers., is a small tree in the genus Sesbania.
Aniba rosaeodora, also known as pau-rosa, is a species of Magnoliid tree in the family Lauraceae. Although sometimes wrongly referred to as rosewood this name is totally misleading; it is no tree of the genus Dalbergia. It grows in parts of the tropical rainforest of South America. It is an endangered species that sees exploitation for its essential oil.
Kino is a botanical gum produced by various trees and other plants, particularly bloodwood species of eucalypts and Pterocarpus, in reaction to mechanical damage, and which can be tapped by incisions made in the trunk or stalk. Many Eucalyptus, Angophora and Corymbia species are commonly referred to as 'bloodwoods', as the kino usually oozes out a very dark red colour. Kino flow in angiosperms contrasts with resin flow in conifers. The word kino is of Indian origin. In Australia, "red gum" is a term for kino from bloodwood trees and red acaroid resin from Xanthorrhoea spp.
Trema orientale is a species of flowering tree in the hemp family, Cannabaceae. It is known by many common names, including charcoal-tree, Indian charcoal-tree, pigeon wood, Oriental trema, and in Hawaii, where it has become naturalized, gunpowder tree, or nalita. It has a near universal distribution in tropical and warm temperate parts of the Old World, with a range extending from South Africa, through the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and southern China to Southeast Asia and Australia.
