Ebony, pau-ferro, etc

[Bandersnatch Reverb]

There's another thread here that mentions a few woods, thought maybe it would be good for a new thread, to make it easy to find later.

I noticed that one poster used the scientific name of the wood he was referring to as a type of ironwood.

I've run across black ebony, something called "light" ebony, red ebony, red pau-ferro, black pau-ferro, black rosewood, light rosewood, "ironwood", and others I cant remember.

I have no idea what these woods actually are.

Somehow I think if its black, they just call it ebony, unless they think they can get more for it by naming it something else. There are a few really black woods out there, and most of the ebony I've seen has at least some streaking to it in places. Some of it is really streaked (which can look very nice). I have no idea if this is because of soil type, weather, being heartwood vs pulpwood, dunno.

I was once sold some "black pau-ferro" which I was told is rare, the same tree as the red streaked wood, but much denser. It _was_ dense, that much I can atttest. I've seen some pau-ferro that is much lighter and browner than rosewood.

Seen black "rosewood" that I am almost certain was rosewood since it had the same distinctive scent when sanded or cut.

Then....there are the mahoganies, I dont even wanna go there. Too many real "mahogany" types, then the woods they pass for "a type of mahogany" that is not mahogany at all. I've seen goncalo passed as mahogany until it got to be expensive. Now they call it what it is, and ask a bit more for it.

I suppose the point I'm trying to get at is... unless the scientific name is used and attested to by the supplier, you really can't be sure of what your getting. Heck, even if they DO attest to the wood type, you still aren't really positive. Could be the supplier was getting duped.

Any thoughts?

[sunburst]

I bet Spruce will chime in on this one.

There are thousands of tropical species. Some of them are very similar when in lumber form, and there are even subspecies.
The wood is milled, possibly with species mixed at the mill, and sold. The supplier has no good way to tell if it's all the same species, but he's not really duped. There are what's known as "comercial" names that indicate wood with similar characteristics because it's nearly impossible to separate them all out. This isn't intended to decieve any more than putting Nickel Creek albums in with bluegrass or country in the record store. The buyer needs some kind of classification to know where to look.

If you think about it this way, it makes more sense:
If you go to buy Oak lumber, you'll probably find Red Oak and White Oak. Within the Red Oak lumber stack there might be Northern Red Oak, Southern Red Oak, Scarlet Oak, Pin Oak, etc. etc. Same with White Oak, but fewer species. For most uses of Oak it makes no difference.

If I want something really specific, I like to know the latin name.

As for Ebony, that's sometimes called Diospyros sp.. The sp. means they didn't bother to, or were unable to determine the exact species of Ebony, and didn't figure it mattered anyway. There are lots of Ebony species.

African Blackwood has been sold as Ebony, tho it's really a Rosewood (Dalbergia), but if you buy from companies that specialize in instrument woods, they will usually list the species, or at least what various species the wood is.

There's more to say on this subject, and I'm sure more will be posted. This looks like a good chance to learn some things about wood! Stay tuned!