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Diospyros ebenum
Also called Indian Ebony
Ceylon ebony is a slow-growing evergreen tree from southern India and Sri Lanka, prized for its hard black heartwood. It is grown mainly for timber and ornamental shade, and is not a common houseplant.
Ceylon ebony or Diospyros ebenum (Sinhala: කළුවර Kaluwara) (Tamil: கருங்காலி Karungaali), is a species of tree in the genus Diospyros and the family Ebenaceae. The tree produces valuable black wood.
The tree occurs in southern India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. In Sinhalese, the tree is known as කළුවර ගස් (Kaluwara Gas), due to its hard black wood.
In the 16th—19th centuries, the best furniture was made of Ceylon ebony. The wood was preferred for making door and window handles, tableware shanks, while the cuttings were used for knitting needles and hooks or razor handles. Today, the wood is commonly used in decorative wooden inlays, handmade artwork, and for parts of musical instruments that tend to receive the most wear: piano keys, fingerboards and necks for fretted and bowed instruments, pegs, tailpieces, and nuts. It's also commonly used in turnery to make knife handles, brush holders, and chopsticks. It is also used to treat eye infections in Unani medicine.
Mabolo · Diospyros buxifolia · Diospyros diepenhorstii · Diospyros egrettarum · Diospyros ferrea · Australian Ebony · Japanese persimmon · Date-plum · Indian Persimmon · Tendu · Black sapote · Diamond Leaf Persimmon
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Diospyros ebenum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
