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Pterocarpus is a genus of pantropical trees in the pea family, best known as the source of padauk timber. Commonly grown members include African padauk (P. soyauxii), Burmese padauk (P. macrocarpus) and narra (P. indicus), mostly grown for wood rather than as garden plants.
Pterocarpus is a pantropical tree genus in the Fabaceae family. It belongs to the subfamily Faboideae, and was recently assigned to the informal monophyletic Pterocarpus clade within the Dalbergieae. Most species of Pterocarpus yield valuable timber traded as padauk (or padouk), usually pronounced or ; other common names are Mukwa (Africa) or Narra (Asia).
The West African species may be traded as African rosewood. P. santalinus also yields the most precious red sandalwood in China known as Zitan. The wood from the narra tree (P. indicus) and the Burmese padauk tree (P. macrocarpus) is marketed as amboyna when it has grown in the burl form. The scientific name is Latinized Ancient Greek and means "wing fruit", referring to the unusual shape of the seed pods in this genus.
Padauk wood is obtained from several species of Pterocarpus. All padauks are of African or Asian origin. Padauks are valued for their toughness, stability in use, and decorativeness, most having a reddish wood. Most Pterocarpus woods contain either water- or alcohol-soluble substances and can be used as dyes.
Bleedwood tree · East Indian mahogany · Barwood · Pterocarpus · Small Leaved Bloodwood · Malabar kino · Dragonsblood tree · Red sandalwood · Barwood
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Pterocarpus 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.
