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| Commercial timbers |
Nomenclature etc. MELIACEAE. Including. Trade and local names: melia (trade); mindi, jempinis, geringging (ID); tamaga (MM); bakainu (NP); bakan, denkan (IN). Not protected under CITES regulations.
Tree. Geographic distribution: India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indomalesia, southern Brazil (native to northern India, today widely cultivated in SE-Asia and southern South America).
General. Growth ring boundaries distinct. Mostly ring-porous, wood from plantations often with extremely wide growth increments up to 2 cm. Heartwood basically light pinkish brown. Sapwood colour distinct from heartwood colour (sapwood yellowish-white). Density 0.5–0.65 g/cm³. Wood of commercial potential (wood from plantations).
Vessels. Wood ring porous to semi ring porous. Vessels arranged in a diagonal and/or radial pattern, in multiples, commonly in short (2–3 vessels) radial rows. Average tangential vessel diameter 200–350 µm. Average vessel element length 200–350 µm. Perforation plates simple. Intervessel pits alternate, average diameter (vertical) 5–7 µm. Vessel-ray pits with distinct borders, similar to intervessel pits (slightly smaller). Helical thickenings present, only in narrow vessel elements, throughout the body of vessel elements. Tyloses absent. Other deposits present (dark reddish brown, predominatly in early wood vessels).
Tracheids and fibres. Fibres very thin-walled, or of medium wall thickness. Average fibre length 800–1650 µm. Fibre pits mainly restricted to radial walls, simple to minutely bordered.
Axial parenchyma. Axial parenchyma present, banded. Bands marginal (or seemingly marginal) (wide initial bands including most earlywood vessels). Axial parenchyma bands much wider than rays. Bands coarse. Axial parenchyma apotracheal (individual strands, mostly crytalliferous), or paratracheal. Apotracheal axial parenchyma diffuse, or diffuse-in-aggregates. Paratracheal axial parenchyma vasicentric, or confluent (confluent in latewood connecting groups of small vessels). Axial parenchyma as strands. Average number of cells per strand: 3–6.
Rays. Rays 3–5 per tangential mm, multiseriate, (2–)4–8 cells wide. Height of large rays commonly 500 to 1000 µm. Rays composed of a single cell type (homocellular); homocellular ray cells procumbent.
Mineral inclusions. Crystals present, prismatic, located in ray cells (sparse) or axial parenchyma cells. Crystal-containing ray cells procumbent. Crystal-containing axial parenchyma cells chambered. Number of crystals per cell or chamber one. Silica not observed.
Illustrations. • Macroscopic images: cross section. transverse (ca. 10x). • Macroscopic images: wood surface. surface (natural size). tangential. radial. • Transverse section. • Tangential section. • Radial section.
The interactive key allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting specified attributes, summaries of attributes within groups of taxa, and geographical distribution.
Cite this publication as: ‘Richter, H.G., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2000 onwards. Commercial timbers: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. In English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. Version: 9th April 2019. delta-intkey.com’.
