Rosewood earned its name from a scent that lingers for years
Brazilian rosewood gives off a strong, sweet smell that hangs on in the timber for years, and that fragrance explains the name. The dense, dark-veined wood takes a glassy polish, which made it a favourite for fine furniture and guitars, and helped turn it into one of the world's most trafficked wild products.
Genuine rosewood comes from Dalbergia, a large genus of trees in which only about a dozen species yield the prized timber. The one most admired in the West is Dalbergia nigra, called Brazilian or Bahia rosewood. East Indian rosewood, from Dalbergia latifolia, is native to India and is also raised on plantations, while Madagascar's bois de rose is sought for its red colour. Some species rise into the forest canopy, reaching up to 30 metres.
Other Dalbergia species make famous woods under different names, including African blackwood, kingwood and Brazilian tulipwood. Meanwhile the timber trade stretches the word rosewood over lookalikes from unrelated trees, usually with an adjective attached: Bolivian rosewood is a Machaerium, and New Guinea rosewood is a Pterocarpus. Australian rose mahogany shares nothing with true rosewood except a rose-like smell from freshly cut bark. Even rosewood oil for perfume comes from a separate tree, Aniba rosaeodora.
Hard, tough and heavy, the wood suits jobs that demand both beauty and durability. Fretboards on many electric and acoustic guitars are rosewood, and Honduran rosewood goes into marimba keys and clarinets. Turners shape it into billiard cues, fountain pens and the black pieces of chess sets, and it also ends up in handles, luxury flooring and jewellery such as bracelets.
Demand has thinned wild stocks badly. Madagascar banned the trade in 2010, yet illegal felling there carries on at a large scale. CITES, the treaty governing international wildlife trade, added more rosewood species to its protected lists at meetings in 2013, 2016 and 2019, and each listing set off a buying boom in China. Eventually the convention put trade limits on all 300 species of the tree, but Chinese demand has kept illegal logging going in Africa.
Source: Rosewood
