''Peltogyne'', commonly known as purpleheart, violet wood, amaranth and other local names (often referencing the colour of the wood) is a genus of 23 species of
flowering plant
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...
s in the family
Fabaceae
Fabaceae () or Leguminosae,[International Code of Nomen ...](_blank)
; native to
tropical rainforest
Tropical rainforests are dense and warm rainforests with high rainfall typically found between 10° north and south of the Equator. They are a subset of the tropical forest biome that occurs roughly within the 28° latitudes (in the torrid zo ...
s of
Central and
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
; from
Guerrero, Mexico, through Central America, and as far as south-eastern Brazil.
They are medium-sized to large
tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...
s growing to tall, with trunk diameters of up to . The
leaves
A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...
are alternate, divided into a symmetrical pair of large leaflets long and broad. The
flower
Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...
s are small, with five white petals, produced in
panicle
In botany, a panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. (softcover ). Some authors distinguish it from a compound spike inflorescence, by requiring that the flowers (and fruit) be pedicellate (having a single stem per flower). The branches of a p ...
s. The
fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...
is a
pod containing a single seed. The timber is desirable, but difficult to work.
Distribution
The species of the genus range from southeastern Brazil through northern South America, Panama, Costa Rica, and Trinidad, with the majority of species in the
Amazon Basin
The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributary, tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries ...
. ''P. mexicana'' is a geographic outlier, native to the Mexican state of
Guerrero
Guerrero, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Guerrero, is one of the 32 states that compose the administrative divisions of Mexico, 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into Municipalities of Guerrero, 85 municipalities. The stat ...
.
[ ]Overharvesting
Overexploitation, also called overharvesting or ecological overshoot, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns. Continued overexploitation can lead to the destruction of the resource, as it will be unable to ...
has caused several species to become endangered in areas where they were once abundant.
Wood
The trees are prized for their beautiful heartwood
Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin t ...
which, when cut, quickly turns from a light brown
Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing and painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors Orange (colour), orange and black.
In the ...
to a rich purple
Purple is a color similar in appearance to violet light. In the RYB color model historically used in the arts, purple is a secondary color created by combining red and blue pigments. In the CMYK color model used in modern printing, purple is ...
color. Exposure to ultraviolet
Ultraviolet radiation, also known as simply UV, is electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths of 10–400 nanometers, shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation is present in sunlight and constitutes about 10% of ...
(UV) light darkens the wood to a brown color with a slight hue of the original purple. This effect can be minimized with a finish containing a UV inhibitor.
The dry timber is very hard, stiff, and dense with a specific gravity
Relative density, also called specific gravity, is a dimensionless quantity defined as the ratio of the density (mass of a unit volume) of a substance to the density of a given reference material. Specific gravity for solids and liquids is nea ...
of 0.86 (). Purpleheart is correspondingly difficult to work with. It is very durable and water-resistant.
As it's so stiff, it's used as a Tonewood in instruments, especially guitar fretboards and reinforcing strips in the neck
The neck is the part of the body in many vertebrates that connects the head to the torso. It supports the weight of the head and protects the nerves that transmit sensory and motor information between the brain and the rest of the body. Addition ...
of guitars and basses. Some Neck-Through-Body guitars are reinforced with Purpleheart to aid structural and tuning stability as well as for its resonant tonal properties.
Uses and hazards
Purpleheart is prized for use in fine inlay
Inlay covers a range of techniques in sculpture and the decorative arts for inserting pieces of contrasting, often colored materials into depressions in a base object to form Ornament (art), ornament or pictures that normally are flush with the ...
work especially on musical instruments, guitar fret boards (although rarely), woodturning
Woodturning is the craft of using a wood lathe with hand-held tools to cut a shape that is symmetrical around the axis of rotation. Like the potter's wheel, the wood lathe is a mechanism that can generate a variety of forms. The operator is kno ...
, cabinetry
A cabinet is a case or cupboard with shelves or drawers for storing or displaying items. Some cabinets are stand alone while others are built in to a wall or are attached to it like a medicine cabinet. Cabinets are typically made of wood (solid ...
, flooring, and furniture
Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., Stool (seat), stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (table (furniture), tables), storing items, working, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Furnitur ...
.
Purpleheart presents a number of challenges in the woodshop. Its hard-to-detect interlocking grain makes hand-planing, chiseling and working with carving tools a challenge. However, woodturners can note that with sharp tools, it turns clean, and sands well.
Exposure to the dust generated by cutting and sanding purpleheart can cause skin, eye, and respiratory irritation and nausea, possibly because of the presence of dalbergione (neoflavonoid
Neoflavonoids are a class of polyphenolic compounds. While flavonoids (in the narrow sense) have the 2-phenylchromen-4-one backbone, neoflavonoids have the 4-phenylchromen backbone with no hydroxyl group substitution at position 2.
Types
Neoflavo ...
) compounds in the wood. This also makes purpleheart wood unsuitable to most people for use in jewelry. Purpleheart is also a fairly expensive wood, which is why it is usually used in smaller-scale projects.
Species
The following list of species is according to Plants of the World Online
Plants of the World Online (POWO) is an online taxonomic database published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
History
Following the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew launched Plants of the World Online i ...
.''Peltogyne'' in POWO
last accessed 10 April 2021
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Peltogyne altissima'' Ducke
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Peltogyne angustiflora'' Ducke
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Peltogyne campestris'' Ducke
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Peltogyne catingae'' Ducke
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Peltogyne chrysopis'' Barneby
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Peltogyne crenulata'' Afr.Fern.
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Peltogyne discolor'' Vogel
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Peltogyne excelsa'' Ducke
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Peltogyne floribunda'' (Kunth) Pittier
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Peltogyne gracilipes'' Ducke
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Peltogyne heterophylla'' M.F.Silva
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Peltogyne lecointei'' Ducke
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Peltogyne maranhensis'' Ducke
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Peltogyne mattosiana'' Rizzini
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Peltogyne mexicana'' Martinez
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Peltogyne paniculata'' Benth.
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Peltogyne paradoxa'' Ducke
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Peltogyne parvifolia'' Benth.
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Peltogyne pauciflora'' Benth.
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Peltogyne prancei'' M.F.Silva
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Peltogyne purpurea'' Pittier
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Peltogyne recifensis'' Ducke
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Peltogyne subsessilis'' W.A.Rodrigues
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Peltogyne venosa'' (M.Vahl) Benth.
Gallery
File:Purpleheart wood.jpg,
Image:Purpleheart-Lyptus-Cherrywoods.jpg, A board laminated with Purpleheart (the darkest of the three), as well as the lighter colored cherry
A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit).
Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet '' Prunus avium'' and the sour '' Prunus cerasus''. The na ...
and the salmon colored Lyptus.
File:Peltogyne sp. MHNT.BOT.2010.6.48.jpg, Peltogyne sp. - MHNT
References
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Virtual Flora of Guyana: ''Peltogyne'' herbarium photos*
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{{Authority control
Detarioideae
Fabaceae genera
Flora of the Neotropical realm