Cocobolo Lumber

A Rosewood By Any Other Name

For the practicing woodworker, calling a piece of wood by its common name seldom creates confusion. If you ask for a few planks of white oak at a lumber yard, for example, there is no reason why you should not get what you requested. But with some species, particularly exotics that must be purchased by mail-order, identities can be less certain. Common names are misleading when trees with different characteristics share the same name, or when the same species has different common names in separate localities.

Suppose you wanted samples of a very rare and expensive species like Brazilian rosewood, a black-streaked, dark brown wood often used in the making of superior-quality guitars. A supplier could in good conscience send you pieces of kingwood or tulip-wood instead, since both belong to the rosewood family and are native to Brazil. In fact, there are several genuine rosewoods, such as East Indian rosewood and cocobolo, that cost much less than the Brazilian variety and are easier to find. However, they might not fit the bill for a guitar-maker. Other species, such as bocote, bubinga and padauk, are often sold as rosewood substitutes, but do not look at all like Brazilian rosewood.

Brazilian rosewood. To avoid confusion, it is helpful to refer to certain woods by their botanical names. Brazilian rosewood is Dalbergia nigra, and a guitar-maker who requests it by that name will not be disappointed.

This scientific naming system was developed more than 200 years ago by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus.

As shown below, in a botanical analysis of Brazilian rosewood, Linnaeus’ now universally accepted scheme classifies plants into the various taxonomic groups of phyla, classes, orders, families, genera and species. Almost all trees belong to the spermatophyta phylum, with hardwoods in the angiospermae sub-phylum and the dicotyledonae class, and softwoods belonging to the gymnospermae subphylum.

A botanical breakdown of Brazilian rosewood

• Phylum: Spermatophyta
• Sub-phylum: Angiospermae
• Class: Dicotyledonae
• Order: Rosales
• Family: Leguminosae
• Genus: Dalbergia
• Species: Nigra

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