Woods Used in Handles

SOME OF THE WOODS USED IN UMBRELLA HANDLES

HICKORY
Any of four species of North American tree of the genus Carya in the Walnut family Juglandacea.  The trees vary in size from 60 to 120 feet in height.  The trunks are straight and cylindrical and the lower halves devoid of branches.

The fruit is a thin shelled nut enclosed in a large husk which splits into four segments when ripe.  The timber is hard, tough and shock resistant and in these respects superior to Ash.  The sapwood is known as White Hickory and the red brown heartwood as Red Hickory.

The four species are:
1 Pignut or Broom Hickory - Clabra
2 Mockernut Hickory - Tomentosa Synalba
3 Shellbark or Kingnut Hickory - Lacinosa
4 Shagbark Hickory - Ovata.  This produces the chief Hickory nut.  The species was introduced into Britain in 1629.  Closely related members of the same species are:
   (a) sweet Pecan  - Illinoensis
   (b) bitter Pecan - Aquatica

TULIP WOOD
Large deciduous North American tree - Lirodendrum Tulipifera, American Whitewood, Canary Whitewood or White Poplar.  The cheaper woods are used extensively for plywood and the more expensive for cabinet making.  Used quite a lot by 18th century furniture makers for edgings.

ACACIA WOOD
A genus of shrubs and trees of the order Leguminosae.  Sub family Mimosideae.  In India and North Africa exudes a gum marketed as gum arabic.

ROSEWOOD
A valuable and heavy wood from Brazil, Rio de Janeiro and India.

MALACCA
Stem of a Palm tree that grows in Sumatra and named after the British settlement in that area.  Genus Calamcis Scipionum.

WHANGHEE
Phyllostachys.  A genus of forty species of grasses once mistakenly classified as a bamboo (Bambusa).  Hardy evergreen plant from Japan, China and the Himalayas.

PARTRIDGE WOOD
Species of Palm.  See above.

FURZE
Ulex.  Also called Whin and Gorse.

LANCEWOOD
Duguetia Culra Oxandra Virgata.  From Jamaica.

ELSBEERE
From the Ash family.  When finished looks like Scorched Maple.

CALMA
A cane.  Same as Malacca