I just visited a woodstore and bought a small piece just because I have no idea what it is. The label says its called Mkochi (yes I've typed that correctly) and it looks a bit like palm wood. Does anyone have any experience of this stuff? Google thinks it's a figment of my imagination!
TIA Mark
that's the kind of word you might find used by some small ethnic group for a local wood in, perhaps, Africa.... (I have M'vuli, also spelled M'vule, Mvouli..etc..which is known in the trade as Iroko) The situation gets so silly, I will stand in a store and lecture them if they try to see me woods that they don't KNOW the origin of!
They buy a batch, take the word of the importer (and his dubious spelling) as to what it is, and smile at you like they've done you a favor...*sigh* It gets even worse when someone doesn't LIKE the name the tribe tells them, and decides to invent a name that is easier to sell.. "Canarywood" "Bolivian Rosewood" "Sydney Ear-Wattle"
Your wood may be hard to trace...sometimes you can send a piece to the Forest Products Lab in Wisconsin and get an answer, if it is really important, but *shrug*...going back to the store and seeing if they can trace it thru their supplier may be the easiest way.
Mark,
These sound like the most likely candidates for your mystery wood:
Mkoche ( Hyphaene coriacea) Mkoche (Borassus flabellifer)
I found references to both species referred to by the same name. Both are, in fact, palms, and both are indigenous to South Africa and other places.
If you do a search by species name, you'll come up with a wealth of information on both of them. Far too much for me to transcribe here.
Hope this is of some help.
-- Chuck *#:^) chaz3913(AT)yahoo(DOT)com Anti-spam sig: please remove "NO SPAM" from e-mail address to reply. <
September 11, 2001 - Never Forget
It's vacuum cleaner wood because it SUCKS.
No, actually grass tree root is a member of the lily family, and the palms are not related to them at all.
Palm wood is entirely different and "mkoche" or whatever spelling is used, is a palm, not a grass tree root.
-- Chuck *#:^) chaz3913(AT)yahoo(DOT)com Anti-spam sig: please remove "NO SPAM" from e-mail address to reply. <
September 11, 2001 - Never Forget
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