The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Paubrasilia echinata
Also called Brazilwood, Peachwood
Pernambuco (brazilwood) is a legume tree native to Brazil's Atlantic Forest, valued for its dense red heartwood used for violin bows. It is endangered in the wild, so it is best grown as a tree in suitable warm climates rather than from wild-harvested material.
Paubrasilia echinata is a species of flowering plant in the legume family, Fabaceae, that is endemic to the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. It is a Brazilian timber tree commonly known as brazilwood (pau-brasil; Tupi: ybyrapytanga) and is the national tree of Brazil. This plant has a dense, orange-red heartwood that takes a high shine, and it is the premier wood used for making bows for stringed instruments. The wood also yields a historically important red dye called brazilin, which oxidizes to brazilein.
The name pau-brasil was applied to certain species of the genus Caesalpinia in the medieval period, and was given its original scientific name Caesalpinia echinata in 1785 by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. More recent taxonomic studies have suggested that it merits recognition as a separate genus, and it was thus renamed Paubrasilia echinata in 2016.
Brazilwood is considered to be superior to all other materials for making stringed-instrument bows. Excessive harvesting led to a steep decrease in the number of brazilwood trees in the 18th century, causing the collapse of this economic activity. Presently, the species is nearly extirpated in most of its original range. Brazilwood is listed as an endangered species by the IUCN, and it is cited in the official list of endangered flora of Brazil.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Paubrasilia 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.
