Melia wood properties

Anatomical Properties of Bakain (Melia Azedarach)

General Characteristics of the wood:

The sapwood is yellowish-white and the heartwood is red, turning to reddish brown with age. The wood is lustrous, odourless, tasteless, light, straight grained coarse and uneven textured.

Structure of wood:

Growth rings are conspicuous delimited by a zone of large springwood pores as the wood is ring porous, variable in width and are 0.97/cm. Vessels are of two sorts. The earlywood vessels occur solitary or paired radially or contiguous in tangential plane, larger in size, 94.5µ-304.5µ in diameter and are 7-15/mm sq. in number. The latewood vessels occur in groups, forming flame like irregular oblique patches along with longitudinal parenchyma, smaller in size, 63µ-241.5µ wide and are 3 - 15/mm sq. in number. Tyloses are absent. Reddish-brown gummy deposits are abundant occluding the vessels. Wood rays are broad, visible with the naked eye on the cross surface of wood, homogeneous, 9.-16/mm sq. in tangential section and 3-4/mm in cross section. The largest rays are up to 582µ (32 cells) high and 67.9µ (7 cells) wide. Parenchyma is Paratracheal and metatracheal. Paratracheal parenchyma is abundant encircling the vessel groups forming flame-like irregular oblique patches extending across the rays. The metatracheal parenchyma forms a broad belt in the beginning of the growth rings or scattered. Fibers are non-libriform, arranged in radial rows, non-septate, 0.78mm -1.3 mm long, 12.75µ-22.95µ in diameter and the fiber walls are 2.55µ-5.1µ thick.