''Aspidosperma quebracho-blanco'', commonly known as Quebracho blanco, kebrako, or white quebracho, is a South American tree species, native to Brazil, northern Argentina,

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

, Paraguay, and Uruguay.Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
/ref> It must not be confused with other species also known as '' quebracho'', but belonging to the genus '' Schinopsis''.

Description

''Aspidosperma quebracho-blanco'' is an evergreen tree. It reaches 20 to 30 meters in height in the Humid Chaco, and 8 to 12 meters in the

Dry Chaco The Gran Chaco or Dry Chaco is a sparsely populated, hot and semiarid lowland natural region of the Río de la Plata basin, divided among eastern Bolivia, western Paraguay, northern Argentina, and a portion of the Brazilian states of Mato Gr ...

. The foliage is sclerophyllous.

Habitat and range

''Aspidosperma quebracho-blanco'' is generally found in dry deciduous forests, where it grows on clay soils. It is most common in the Gran Chaco, Humid Chaco, Argentine Espinal, and Bolivian montane dry forests ecoregions of Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil. Its range extends to adjacent ecoregions, including the Uruguayan savanna, Paraná flooded savanna, Southern Cone Mesopotamian savanna, Southern Andean Yungas, Cerrado, Pantanal, Central Andean puna,

Chiquitano dry forests The Chiquitano dry forests is a tropical dry broadleaf forest ecoregion in Bolivia and Brazil. The ecoregion is named for the Chiquitano people who live in the region. Setting The Chiquitano dry forests cover an area of . The ecoregion lies east ...

, and Beni savanna.

Timber

Quebracho blanco wood is uniformly yellow-ochre, without differences between

hardwood Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes from ...

and

sapwood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin t ...

. It is quite heavy (

relative density Relative density, or specific gravity, is the ratio of the density (mass of a unit volume) of a substance to the density of a given reference material. Specific gravity for liquids is nearly always measured with respect to water at its densest ...

= 0.885 g/cm³) and hard, and responds well to bending and shock. Upon drying it tends to collapse, producing deformations and cracks, so the drying process is slow; the wood must be treated with

fungicide Fungicides are biocidal chemical compounds or biological organisms used to kill parasitic fungi or their spores. A fungistatic inhibits their growth. Fungi can cause serious damage in agriculture, resulting in critical losses of yield, quality, ...

s. It is easy to work and has many uses in

carpentry Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenters tr ...

(carts, wheels, floors, shoes, tool handles, furniture); it is also good for chess pieces, skis, etc. Preserved with creosote it can be used outdoors. In some places it is widely used as

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, cal ...

, since it does not produce sparks or large amounts of ash, and it burns strong and slowly.

Other chemicals

Quebrachitol is a

cyclitol In organic chemistry, a cyclitol is a cycloalkane containing at least three hydroxyl, each attached to a different ring carbon atom. The general formula for an unsubstituted cyclitol is or where 3 ≤ ''x'' ≤ ''n''. The name is also used for c ...

, a cyclic polyol found in the bark of ''A. quebracho''.

Quebrachine Yohimbine (), also known as quebrachine, is an indole alkaloid derived from the bark of the African tree ''Pausinystalia johimbe''; also from the bark of the unrelated South American tree ''Aspidosperma quebracho-blanco''. Yohimbine is an α2- ...

is a chemical synonym for yohimbine since it was first isolated from the bark of ''A. quebracho-blanco''.

Cultivars

* 'Pendula' - with weeping branches.Govaerts, R., Michielsen, K. & Jablonski, E. (2011). Untraced Weeping Broadleaf cultivars: an overview.
Belgische Dendrologie Belge
'' 2009: 19-30.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q133430 quebracho-blanco Trees of South America Trees of Argentina Trees of Bolivia Trees of Paraguay Trees of Uruguay Drought-tolerant trees Medicinal plants of South America Plants described in 1861 Gran Chaco