Belbazaar - Indian furniture

Rosewood (palisander, shesham)
Rosewood refers to a number of richly-hued timbers, often brownish with darker veining. Rosewoods are strong and heavy. Of excellent polish, suitable for furniture, flooring and musical instruments.

Indian rosewood
A beautiful specimen, often grown for shade. Easily-grown semi-evergreen Indian Rosewood has delicate, light green, oval, pointed leaves and can reach 60 feet in height with a 40-foot spread. The conspicuous, very fragrant, white flowers are followed by slender, flat, brown, one to four-seeded pods. The trunks yield a prized cabinet wood for fine furniture and the Rosewood genus is an important timber tree in India. There are many Dalbergia species grown in the tropical regions of the world for veneer and lumber.

Hardiness zone USDA:	10 to 11
Scientific name:	Dalbergia sissoo
Pronunciation:	dal-BERG-ee-uh SIS-oo
Common name:	Indian Rosewood PALISANDER

Shisham (Dalbergia sissoo) is an erect deciduous tree, native to Haryana and other parts of India, Pakistan and Nepal. It is also called Sissoo, Sisu, or Rosewood Tree. It usually grows along river banks below 900 m. a.m.s.l., but can also range up to 1,300 m a.m.s.l. The temperature in its native range averages 10-40 °C, but varies from just below zero to nearly 50 C (122 °F). It can withstand average annual rainfall up to 2,000 millimetres and droughts of 3-4 months. Soils range from pure sand and gravel to rich alluvium of river and rivulet banks; Shisham can grow in slightly saline soils. Seedlings are intolerant of shade.

Shisham (Dalbergia sissoo) is best known internationally as a premier timber species of the rosewood genus. However, it is also used as an important fuel wood and for shade and shelter. With its multiple products, tolerance of light frosts and long dry seasons, this species deserves greater consideration for tree farming, reforestation and agro forestry applications. After teak it is the most important cultivated timber tree of Haryana and other parts of India. It is planted on roadsides and as a shade tree for tea plantations.

Timber: Shisham is among the finest cabinet and veneer timbers. The heartwood is golden to dark brown, and sapwood white to pale brownish white. The heartwood is extremely durable (the specific gravity is 0.7 - 0.8) and is very resistant to dry-wood termites.

Acacia wood furniture
Durable hard wood from fast growing trees from the Far East and South America. The small grain, flame design and varied colour shades give furniture made from it warm appearance.

Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees originating from Gondwanaland belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae. There are roughly 1300 species of acacia worldwide, about 950 of them native to Australia, with the remainder spread around the tropical to warm-temperature regions of both hemispheres, including Africa, southern Asia and the Americas.

Acacia timber uses
Acacia had long been valued as a timber tree in the United States. In Virginia and New England it was used for treenails in shipbuilding, being hard, strong, inelastic and durable. Much attention was given to it in Europe for these and other purposes in 1762, 1786 and at subsequent dates. Its timber was described as suitable for furniture, axletrees, cogs, or wedges, and a good fuel. It was widely cultivated as green forage for cattle. In 1791 a Mr. Ebenezer Jessup proposed in the Gentleman's Magazine that ten thousand acres in the New Forest and Forest of Dean should be planted with acacia tree for the purposes of the navy, stating that he knew posts made of its wood to last from 80 to 100 years.

William Cobbett, while farming on Long Island between 1817 and 1819, was struck with its utility, and on his return to England brought home some of its seed, which from 1823 he cultivated on an enormous scale at Kensigton and Barnes. He wrote eulogies of the tree, styling it the "tree of trees" and prophesying that it was destined to speedily replace most of the hard-wood trees in cultivation.

Most Acacia species are used to produce highly valued timber, which takes high polish, used for furniture.
Acacia is thought to be the Shittah tree frequently referenced in the Bible which supplied shittim-wood. It was used in the construction of the Ark of the Covenant.

As a soul icon, Acacia is used as one of the most meaningful symbols in Freemasonry to represent endurance and purity of the soul.


Teak
Teak, depending on the country of origin, bears different names: Birman Teak - Moulmein teak, Rangoon teak; Thai Teak - may sak, sak; Indian Teak - Malabar teak; Teak from Java - Java teak, giati, jati. Teak is a tree up to 40 m tall. The trunk of a full-grown tree reaches the length of up to 20 m and a diameter from 1.5 to 3 m. Directly after cutting, Teak's weight is 800-900 kg/m3, which, after reaching approx. 9% humidity, falls to approx. 600- 700 kg/m3. Teak wood is characterized by a variety of colours, from yellow through red to dark brown, often with single, black rings. With time, Teak changes its original colour in a natural way into dark brown. To prevent this process, it is possible to protect the wood surface with materials containing UV filters.

Teak, similarly to Lapacho, is not sensitive to water and therefore belongs to the species most suitable for production of floors in bathrooms and such outside structures as pool sides, garden furniture or small bridges. Teak natural resistance to fresh and salt water is even higher than in case of Lapacho, so the wood is used for finishing yacht decks. Teak is highly resistant to fungi and insects. Teak wood is very stable and has a very long period of reaching hygroscopic equilibrium, and as such it is perfectly suitable for garden and bathroom furniture.