This wood comes from Brazil, Guyana, and Surinam. It is also known as Wamara, Coracao de negro, Gombeira, Panacoco, Brazilian ebony, and ironwood.
Since the genus Swartzia has more than 150 species, it is often hard to tell them apart. This is especially true because the dark brown wood of many species is very similar.
Wamara wood that has just been cut may be yellow on the inside. After a few days, the color will change to dark brown.
Wamara is sometimes called Guyana Rosewood because its wood is shiny, dense, and colorful. Technically, it isn’t a true rosewood (genus Dalbergia), but it is in a group of tropical hardwoods that could be seen as one of the most under-appreciated.
There are many kinds of wood in this genus, most of which are still unknown.
Most people say that heartwood is resistant to decay, but sapwood, which makes up most of the lumber, is not very strong.
It is a hard, high-density wood that is said to be either very hard or moderately hard to work with either by hand or with machines.
Most often comes in squares for turning or as figured lumber, which often has a lot of sapwood.
Habitat and Geographical location
This species is from Guyana in northern South America. A tree grows in the top layer of a forest.
It is commonly dominant in the seasonal forest and common in the rainforest. It grows in different kinds of forests, but mostly in mixed rainforests.
Neither the CITES Appendices nor the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species includes this particular wood species. Wamara wood is a hardwood that doesn’t rot or get eaten by termites, but marine bores can eat it.
Names and distribution
Botanically, Wamara (Swartzia panacoco, S. leiocalycina, S. benthamiana, and S. prouacensis) is a legume (Fabaceae).
Wamara lives in the lowland forests of Guyana and the northern Amazon. Common names include Wamara, Guyana Rosewood, Coracao de negro, Panacoco, Bannia, and Saboarana.
The wood can also replace cocus wood (Brya selbstus), also called Jamaican Ebony, which is no longer available.
Wood identification
Smooth surface, finely tessellated, strongly ribbed or warty, dehiscent or not; seeds 1–several, usually arilate, aril white, yellow, or red.
Heartwood deposits of different colors are common. Parenchyma is winged, confluent, and banded (sometimes reticulate). Rays are narrow and pretty close together.
Leaves 1–31 are opposite (or alternate in one species), and the leaves at the bottom are smaller. There are petiolules and stipples on the leaves, and the rachis and petioles are slight to strongly winged, straight, or hollow.
There are usually one to several seeds, and the aril is white, yellow, or red. The vessels have colored deposits.
Color and appearance
Heartwood can vary from medium reddish brown to purple-black and often has darker stripes that stand out. The sapwood has clear lines and is a pale yellowish-white color.
The fine-pored wood often has an attractive interlocked grain figure that gives it a silky sheen and fine structures that look like rosewood.
Durability
Due to its high density, hardness, and weight of about 1200 kg/m3, wood plays a unique role. It is also one of the world’s hardest and most rot-resistant woods.
Grain and texture
Most of the time, the grain is straight, but it can also be crooked or knotted with a smooth, fine texture and a natural shine.
Endgrain diffusely porous, with large pores that aren’t arranged in a certain way and very few of them. Pores can be single or in groups of two or three.
Workability
Wamara is usually considered hard to work with because it is so dense.
This type of wood is hard to work with, so you don’t see it much outside Brazil. The wood’s color ranges from a deep, rich golden to a dark brown that is almost black. It gets even darker when it comes into contact with oxygen and light.
The dry-wood termite is not likely to damage the wood. It dries slowly and has a high chance of cracking but a small chance of warping. Once it’s dry, it’s not very stable in use.
But most people agree that the wood has a smooth finish, turns well (like many other dense kinds of wood), doesn’t take stains well, but polishes up to a nice shine.
- SAWING: Cutting behavior is reported to be fair.
- BLUNTING EFFECT: It has a moderate blunting effect on the cutting tools.
- MACHINING: The response of this species to machining operations is fair.
- NAILING: This species is reported to have poor nailing behavior.
- GLUING: This species has fair to poor behavior in gluing.
- FINISHING: The wood of this species is easy to finish.
Wamara wood uses
Heartwood is one of the most popular woods on the export market. It makes high-quality furniture, cabinets, inlays, walking sticks, bagpipes, parquet flooring, musical instruments, string bows, bowling balls, knife handles, pens, and bows.
In recent years, it has become a popular alternative to African ebony in guitars since Fender and Gibson use it in their more expensive models.
In some places, white sapwood is used to make frames for tools and spokes for wheels. Dark heartwood is used for posts, items made by turning, furniture, cabinetry, and heavy, long-lasting construction.
People have suggested using sapwood instead of hickory (Carya) for projects that need something very strong, tough, and resilient.
The wood should be good for many things that need hard wood with high bending and compression strength, resistance to wear, and longevity.
Related species
Wamara wood is related to Swartzia fistuloides, which grows in Africa, and Swartzia cubensis, which grows in Mexico. There are more than 30 species in the genus Swartzia.
Katalox (Swartzia cubensis)
Katalox is a rare type of wood that comes from Central America. Katalox got the name “Royal Mexican Ebony” because it is so dense.
The wood is generally very durable, which makes it great for many different uses. However, it can be hard to re-saw (because of its density) and glue.
Its heartwood is one of the most durable of all exotic woods, but bugs can make holes in the sapwood.
Queenwood (Swartzia spp.)
The flowering plants in the genus Swartzia belong to the family Fabaceae. It was named after Olof Swartz, a Swedish botanist, and has about 200 species.
Most Swartzia species are trees, from small ones in the understory to big ones in the canopy. Many fossils from the middle Eocene period have been found in the United States.
Many fossils of Swartzia from the middle Eocene period have been found in the United States.
