About Teak Tree & Wood; what’s so Great about Teak? — Different Species of Teak Wood?

The Strongest Wood In The World

Because of this spe­cial char­ac­ter­is­tic, not found in other trees, there has always been inter­est in using Teak wood for var­i­ous types of furniture. Teak is not like other wood species and mar­ket demands and high price points have changed the stan­dard specifications. Teakwood is derived from the teak tree, a type of birch that grows in trop­i­cal climates. 

Teak wood is one of the strongest, most durable hard­woods in the world. The wood has a high oil con­tent which gives it a nat­ural resis­tance to rot and pro­tects against insect infes­ta­tion. Teak is also known for its abil­ity to with­stand almost any weather, which makes it a pop­u­lar choice for boat­build­ing. The oil in teak not only pro­tects the wood, but also gives it a dark golden color and an earthy aroma. Teak wood tends to be a pop­u­lar choice when it comes to out­door fur­ni­ture since it can usu­ally endure tem­per­a­ture extremes with­out the use of preservatives. Since teak wood is usu­ally grown on plan­ta­tions in places like Thai­land, India, and Indone­sia, it is expen­sive. The teak tree is one of the trop­i­cal hard­wood birches in the Ver­be­naceae fam­ily. The trees can grow to over 150 feet (45.7 m) tall and live to be about 100 years old.

Types

• Tec­tona gran­dis or teak is a com­mer­cial dar­ling with wood that is durable and highly resis­tant to fun­gus and insects. The two remain­ing species are the Tec­tona philip­pinen­sis or Philip­pine teak and the Tec­tona hamil­to­ni­ana or Dahat teak.

Geog­ra­phy

• Tec­tona gran­dis is native to India, Laos, Myan­mar and Thai­land. It is farmed in trop­i­cal coun­tries around the world. The Philip­pine teak is native to the Philip­pines and is con­fined to the Philip­pine islands of Iling and Luzon. The Dahat teak is native to Myan­mar and is con­fined to Myanmar’s “Dry Zone.”

Descrip­tion of a Teak Tree
Orig­i­nal Source: Wikipedia — Teak

 

A teak tree, tec­tona gran­dis, is a large, decid­u­ous tree up to 40m (131 ft) tall with gray to gray­ish brown branch­lets. Leaves are ovate-elliptic to ovate, 15–45cm (5.9–17.7 in) long by 8–23cm (3.1–9.1 in) wide, and are held on robust peti­oles that are 2–4cm (0.8–1.6 in) long. Leaf mar­gins are entire.

 

Fra­grant white flow­ers are borne on 25–40 cm (10–16 in) long by 30 cm (12 in) wide pan­i­cles from June to August. The corolla tube is 2.5–3 mm long with 2 mm wide obtuse lobes. Tec­tona gran­dis sets fruit from Sep­tem­ber to Decem­ber; fruits are glo­bose and 1.2–1.8cm in diam­e­ter. Flow­ers are weakly protan­drous in that the anthers pre­cede the stigma in matu­rity and pollen is shed within a few hours of the flower open­ing. The flow­ers are pri­mar­ily ento­mophilous (insect-pollinated), but can occa­sion­ally be anemophilous (wind-pollinated). A 1996 study found that in its native range in Thai­land, the major pol­li­na­tor were species in the Cer­atina genus of bees.

The char­ac­ter­is­tics of the tree:
Orig­i­nal Source: woodtropis.com

• Leaf width
• The skin on the tree like croc­o­dile skin (typ­i­cal of old teak tree)
• Molt or shed their leaves in the dry season

The char­ac­ter­is­tics of shaped wood, these char­ac­ter­is­tics are divided into two namely:

The char­ac­ter­is­tics of young teak

• Fiber and wood pores; Have fibers and larger pores
• Color of wood; wood is palw white
• Tex­ture of wood; wood has a softer tex­ture and lighter
• Cir­cle Year; Hav­ing a cir­cle of a few
• Dura­bil­ity of wood; wood rot eas­ily espe­cially in damp areas

The char­ac­ter­is­tics of teak Old

• Fibers and pores of wood; It has fiber and pore over a small meet­ing or
• Color of wood; Wood yel­low­ish brown
• Tex­ture Wood; Wood has a hard tex­ture, smooth, and very beautiful
• Cir­cle Year; Hav­ing a lot of rings
• Dura­bil­ity of wood; It has excel­lent resis­tance even teak wood is able to sur­vive through decades with­out a loss.

 

Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion

• The Dahat teak has a trunk that can grow up to 26 feet in height and to a diam­e­ter of about 27 inches. Its leaves usu­ally grow in clus­ters of three and its flow­ers range from white to pale blue. The tree flow­ers from June to August. The Philip­pine teak grows to about 49 feet with leaves that mea­sure 3 to 6 inches long and 1 to 3 inches wide and has white flow­ers. The Tec­tona gran­dis is the biggest of the three mea­sur­ing up to a height of 115 feet. Its leaves are sim­ple and its flow­ers are white.

Func­tions

• The wood of the Tec­tona gran­dis is used in ship build­ing, rail­ways, fur­ni­ture, cab­i­net mak­ing and var­i­ous other com­mer­cial pur­poses. Dahat teak is not an impor­tant tim­ber wood but is used locally for fuel and con­struc­tion. Philip­pine teak is used for house posts and gen­eral con­struc­tion but is not an impor­tant tim­ber wood either. Both the Dahat and Philip­pine teaks have poten­tial to be used for teak breed­ing but fur­ther research needs to be done.

Con­ser­va­tion

• All three species of teak trees are in need of con­ser­va­tion. Nat­ural forests of Tec­tona gran­dis have decreased in the last 50 years with the forests that remain threat­ened by ille­gal log­ging and other types of for­est destruc­tion. Only 4,300 liv­ing spec­i­mens of Philip­pine teak remain and the num­ber of Dahat spec­i­mens is not known but it is con­sid­ered endan­gered. Offi­cial pro­tec­tive mea­sures are non-existent for the Philip­pine and Dahat teaks.

For­est of Peace act in Nature for our Future

Ref­er­ences

• Pur­due Uni­ver­sity Hor­ti­cul­ture and Land­scape Architecture
• Teak: a global overview
• Food and Agri­cul­ture Orga­ni­za­tion of the United Nations
• The IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species
• Teak Wood infor­ma­tion on eHow.com

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