Lignum vitae is a trade wood

Wood

Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

, also called guayacan or guaiacum, and in parts of Europe known as pockenholz, from trees of the genus Guaiacum

Guaiacum

Guaiacum, sometimes spelled Guajacum, is a genus of flowering plants in the caltrop family Zygophyllaceae. It contains five species of slow-growing shrubs and trees, reaching a height of approximately but are usually less than half of that...

. This wood was once very important for applications requiring a material with its extraordinary combination of strength

Strength of materials

In materials science, the strength of a material is its ability to withstand an applied stress without failure. The applied stress may be tensile, compressive, or shear. Strength of materials is a subject which deals with loads, deformations and the forces acting on a material. A load applied to a...

, toughness

Toughness

In materials science and metallurgy, toughness is the ability of a material to absorb energy and plastically deform without fracturing; Material toughness is defined as the amount of energy per volume that a material can absorb before rupturing...

 and density

Density

The mass density or density of a material is defined as its mass per unit volume. The symbol most often used for density is ρ . In some cases , density is also defined as its weight per unit volume; although, this quantity is more properly called specific weight...

. It is also the Jamaican national flower.

The wood is obtained chiefly from Guaiacum officinale

Guaiacum officinale

Guaiacum officinale, commonly known as Roughbark Lignum-vitae, is a species of tree in the caltrop family, Zygophyllaceae, that is native to the Caribbean and the northern coast of South America.-Description:...

and Guaiacum sanctum

Guaiacum sanctum

Guaiacum sanctum, commonly known as Holywood or Holywood Lignum-vitae, is a species of flowering plant in the creosote bush family, Zygophyllaceae. It ranges from southern Florida in the United States and the Bahamas south to Central America and the Greater Antilles...

, both small, slow growing trees. All species of the genus Guaiacum are now listed in Appendix II of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) as potentially endangered species

Endangered species

An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...

. Demand for the wood has been reduced by modern materials science

Materials science

Materials science is an interdisciplinary field applying the properties of matter to various areas of science and engineering. This scientific field investigates the relationship between the structure of materials at atomic or molecular scales and their macroscopic properties. It incorporates...

, which has led to polymer

Polymer

A polymer is a large molecule composed of repeating structural units. These subunits are typically connected by covalent chemical bonds...

, alloy

Alloy

An alloy is a mixture or metallic solid solution composed of two or more elements. Complete solid solution alloys give single solid phase microstructure, while partial solutions give two or more phases that may or may not be homogeneous in distribution, depending on thermal history...

s and composite material

Composite material

Composite materials, often shortened to composites or called composition materials, are engineered or naturally occurring materials made from two or more constituent materials with significantly different physical or chemical properties which remain separate and distinct at the macroscopic or...

s which can take lignum vitae's place.

"Lignum vitae" is Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 for "wood of life", and derives from its medicinal uses; lignum vitae resin has been used to treat a variety of medical conditions from cough

Cough

A cough is a sudden and often repetitively occurring reflex which helps to clear the large breathing passages from secretions, irritants, foreign particles and microbes...

s to arthritis

Arthritis

Arthritis is a form of joint disorder that involves inflammation of one or more joints....

, and chips of the wood can also be used to brew a tea

Tea

Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...

. Other names for lignum vitae include palo santo

Palo santo

Palo santo can refer to:*Lignum vitae, heartwood of tree species of the genus Guaiacum, native to subtropical and tropical regions of the Americas...

(Spanish for "holy wood") and greenheart

Greenheart

Greenheart is a common name for several different plants:*Chlorocardium rodiei , a tree native to Guyana in northern South America.*Colubrina arborescens , a shrub native to Florida and the Caribbean....

; lignum vitae is also one of the numerous hard, dense woods referred to as ironwood

Ironwood

Ironwood is a common name for a large number of woods that have a reputation for hardness. Usage of the name may include the tree that yields this wood...

.

Lignum vitae is hard and durable, and is also the densest wood traded; it will easily sink in water

Water

Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...

. On the Janka Scale of Hardness, which measures hardness of woods, lignum vitae ranks highest of the trade woods, with a Janka hardness of 4500 lbf (compared with African Blackwood

African Blackwood

Dalbergia melanoxylon is a flowering plant in the family Fabaceae, native to seasonally dry regions of Africa from Senegal east to Eritrea and south to the Transvaal in South Africa....

 at 2940 lbf, Hickory

Hickory

Trees in the genus Carya are commonly known as hickory, derived from the Powhatan language of Virginia. The genus includes 17–19 species of deciduous trees with pinnately compound leaves and big nuts...

 at 1820 lbf, red oak

Northern Red Oak

Quercus rubra, commonly called northern red oak or champion oak, , is an oak in the red oak group . It is a native of North America, in the northeastern United States and southeast Canada...

 at 1290 lbf, Yellow Pine

Yellow pine

Yellow pine may refer to the following:*Certain pines in the subgenus Pinus subgenus Pinus:**In American forestry, a term for several closely related species of pine with yellow tinted wood, including the Southern Yellow Pines , and the non-Southern yellow pines and several others...

 at 690 lbf, and Balsa

Balsa

Ochroma pyramidale, commonly known as the balsa tree , is a species of flowering plant in the mallow family, Malvaceae. It is a large, fast-growing tree that can grow up to tall. It is the source of balsa wood, a very lightweight material with many uses...

 at 325 lbf). The heartwood is green in color leading to the common name Greenheart. In the shipbuilding, cabinetry, and woodturning

Woodturning

Woodturning is a form of woodworking that is used to create wooden objects on a lathe . Woodturning differs from most other forms of woodworking in that the wood is moving while a stationary tool is used to cut and shape it...

 crafts the term greenheart refers to the green heartwood of Chlorocardium rodiei.

Various other hardwoods of Australasia

Australasia

Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...

 (e.g., some species of Acacia

Acacia

Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1773. Many non-Australian species tend to be thorny, whereas the majority of Australian acacias are not...

and Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...

) may also be called lignum vitae and should not be confused. The best-known is from Bulnesia arborea

Bulnesia arborea

Bulnesia arborea is a species of flowering plant in the creosote subfamily of family Zygophyllaceae. It is native to Colombia and Venezuela. Related to the true lignum vitae trees , it is known as Maracaibo lignum vitae or as "verawood"....

and Bulnesia sarmientoi

Bulnesia sarmientoi

Bulnesia sarmientoi is a tree that inhabits a part of the Gran Chaco area in South America, around the Argentina-Bolivia-Paraguay border. Its wood is often traded as Argentine lignum vitae or Paraguay lignum vitae, since it has properties and uses similar to the "true" lignum vitae trees of genus...

(in the same subfamily

Larreoideae

Larreoideae is a subfamily of the flowering plant family Zygophyllaceae.-Genera:* Bulnesia Gay* Guaiacum L.* Larrea Cav.* Pintoa Gay* Porlieria Ruiz & Pav....

 as Guaiacum) and is known as Verawood

Bulnesia

Bulnesia is a genus of flowering plants in the caltrop family, Zygophyllaceae. The wood of some – particularly B. arborea and B. sarmientoi – is traded as verawood or "lignum vitae"...

 or Argentine

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 lignum vitae; it is somewhat similar in appearance and working qualities as genuine lignum vitae. In the early 2000s the Dogfish Head brewery commissioned a 10,000 gallon brewing barrel made of the latter after hearing that locals used this wood for wine production.

Uses

Due to its density, cricket bails

Bail (cricket)

In the sport of cricket, a bail is one of the two smaller sticks placed on top of the three stumps to form a wicket. The bails are used to determine when the wicket is broken, which in turn is one of the critical factors in determining whether a batsman is out bowled, stumped, run out or hit wicket...

, particularly "heavy bails" used in windy conditions, are sometimes made of lignum vitae. It is also sometimes used to make lawn bowls

Bowls

Bowls is a sport in which the objective is to roll slightly asymmetric balls so that they stop close to a smaller "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a pitch which may be flat or convex or uneven...

, croquet

Croquet

Croquet is a lawn game, played both as a recreational pastime and as a competitive sport. It involves hitting plastic or wooden balls with a mallet through hoops embedded into the grass playing court.-History:...

 mallets and skittles

Skittles (sport)

Skittles is an old European lawn game, a variety of bowling, from which ten-pin bowling, duckpin bowling, and candlepin bowling in the United States, and five-pin bowling in Canada are descended. In the United Kingdom, the game remains a popular pub game in England and Wales, though it tends to be...

 balls. The wood also has seen widespread historical usage in mortars and pestles

Mortar and pestle

A mortar and pestle is a tool used to crush, grind, and mix solid substances . The pestle is a heavy bat-shaped object, the end of which is used for crushing and grinding. The mortar is a bowl, typically made of hard wood, ceramic or stone...

 and for wood carvers' mallets.

It was the traditional wood used for British police truncheon

Baton (law enforcement)

A truncheon or baton is essentially a club of less than arm's length made of wood, plastic, or metal...

 until recently, due to its density (and strength), combined with the relative softness of wood compared to metal, thereby tending to bruise or stun rather than simply cut the skin.

The belaying pin

Belaying pin

A belaying pin is a device used on traditional sailing vessels to secure lines of rigging. Their function on modern vessels has been replaced by cleats, but they are still used, particularly on square rigged ships....

s and deadeye

Deadeye

A deadeye is an item used in the standing and running rigging of traditional sailing ships. It is a smallish round thick wooden disc with one or more holes through it, perpendicular to the plane of the disc. Single and triple-hole deadeyes are most commonly seen...

s aboard the USS Constitution

USS Constitution

USS Constitution is a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. Named by President George Washington after the Constitution of the United States of America, she is the world's oldest floating commissioned naval vessel...

 and many other sailing ships were made from lignum vitae. Due to its density and natural oils, they rarely require replacement, despite the severity of typical marine weathering conditions.

Due to lignum vitae's toughness, it can also be used as a lap

Lapping

Lapping is a machining operation, in which two surfaces are rubbed together with an abrasive between them, by hand movement or by way of a machine.This can take two forms...

 in the process of cutting gems. The wood is covered with powdered industrial diamond, attached to a spindle, and used to smooth rough surfaces of gems.

Master clockmaker John Harrison

John Harrison

John Harrison was a self-educated English clockmaker. He invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought device in solving the problem of establishing the East-West position or longitude of a ship at sea, thus revolutionising and extending the possibility of safe long distance sea travel in the Age...

 used lignum vitae in the bearings and gears of his pendulum clock

Pendulum clock

A pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element. The advantage of a pendulum for timekeeping is that it is a resonant device; it swings back and forth in a precise time interval dependent on its length, and resists swinging at other rates...

s and his early marine timekeeper

Timekeeper

A timekeeper is an instrument or person that measures the passage of time; in the case of the latter, often with the assistance of a clock or stopwatch...

s, since the wood is self-lubricating.

For this same reason it was widely used in shaft bearings. Commonly used in ship's propeller stern-tube bearing

Stave bearing

A stave bearing is a simple journal bearing where a shaft rotates in a bearing housing. Rather than the usual arrangement where the fixed part of the bearing surrounds most of the circumference of the shaft in one or two pieces, a stave bearing uses a large number of axial staves to support the shaft...

s, due to its self-lubricating qualities, until the 1960s with the introduction of sealed white metal

White metal

The white metals are any of several light-colored alloys used as a base for plated silverware, ornaments or novelties, as well as any of several lead-base or tin-base alloys used for things like bearings, jewellery, miniature figures, fusible plugs, some medals and metal type.Some of the metals...

 bearings

Bearing (mechanical)

A bearing is a device to allow constrained relative motion between two or more parts, typically rotation or linear movement. Bearings may be classified broadly according to the motions they allow and according to their principle of operation as well as by the directions of applied loads they can...

. According to the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association website, the shaft bearings on the WWII submarine were made of this wood. The aft main shaft strut bearings for , the world's first nuclear powered submarine, were composed of this wood. Also, the bearings in the original 1920s turbines of the Conowingo Hydroelectric Plant on the lower Susquehanna River

Susquehanna River

The Susquehanna River is a river located in the northeastern United States. At long, it is the longest river on the American east coast that drains into the Atlantic Ocean, and with its watershed it is the 16th largest river in the United States, and the longest river in the continental United...

 were made from lignum vitae.

After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake

1906 San Francisco earthquake

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...

, the urgent need to rebuild the streetcar system and the inability to obtain regular composition, porcelain

Porcelain

Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...

, or glass

Glass

Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...

 insulators for the electrical feeders fast enough, a significant number of insulators were turned from this wood.(readily available from the ships in the harbor as ballast) as a "temporary" solution. Many of these lasted into the 1970s with a small number remaining in service as of 2009 (all these that had been removed were done so as part of a project to move these 600 V DC feeder wires underground).

Greenheart

Greenheart

Greenheart is a common name for several different plants:*Chlorocardium rodiei , a tree native to Guyana in northern South America.*Colubrina arborescens , a shrub native to Florida and the Caribbean....

 was used to make the acclaimed Hardy's Greenheart fly fishing rods, by Hardy Brothers of Alnwick.

Lore

Pioneering calypso

Calypso music

Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago from African and European roots. The roots of the genre lay in the arrival of enslaved Africans, who, not being allowed to speak with each other, communicated through song...

nian/vaudevillian

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 Sam Manning recorded a song entitled "Lignum Vitae" in the 1920s. His reference was doubly salacious, referring to both the bark tea's contraceptive

Contraception

Contraception is the prevention of the fusion of gametes during or after sexual activity. The term contraception is a contraction of contra, which means against, and the word conception, meaning fertilization...

 qualities and the phallic symbolism of the hard wood.

According to T.H. White's version of the King Arthur

King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...

 story The Once and Future King

The Once and Future King

The Once and Future King is an Arthurian fantasy novel written by T. H. White. It was first published in 1958 and is mostly a composite of earlier works written in a period between 1938 and 1941....

, lignum vitae, from which the wand of Merlin

Merlin

Merlin is a legendary figure best known as the wizard featured in the Arthurian legend. The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1136, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures...

 is made, has magical powers.

Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...

's novel Love in the Time of Cholera

Love in the Time of Cholera

Love in the Time of Cholera is a novel by Nobel Prize winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez first published in the Spanish language during 1985. Alfred A. Knopf published the English translation during 1988...

includes a bathtub made of this wood in one of the main characters' homes. His novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a novella by Gabriel García Márquez, published in 1981...

also refers to this wood being used to make a cane for the blind Poncio Vicario.

American folksinger Pete Seeger fashioned the neck of his trademark banjo from lignum vitae.