African Mahogany

African Mohogany - Nomenclature

Common Name: Khaya
Scientific Name: Khaya senegalensis
Family: Meliaceae

Dialect Names: Mubaba
In addition, the bark is often harvested from natural populations as well as plantations and used to treat many diseases.

African Mohogany - Geography

Distribution: West Africa
Countries: Senegal
Habitat: Senegal has a tropical climate with pleasant heat throughout the year with well-defined dry and humid seasons that result from northeast winter winds and southwest summer winds. .
General: The durable reddish-brown wood is used for dug-out canoes or makoros and as a general beam, door frame and shelving timber which is termite and borer resistant. Some drum companies, as Premier, used Khaya wood for making their drums in the mid-70s. However, it was too expensive so they switched to using other materials such as maple and birch.

Senegal Tree Mythos: The Serer creation myth is the traditional creation myth of the Serer people of Senegal, the Gambia and Mauritania. The Serer people have many gods, goddesses and Pangool (the Serer saints and ancestral spirits represented by snakes), but one supreme deity and creator called Roog. The creation myth of the Serer people is intricately linked to the first trees created on Planet Earth by Roog. Earth's formation began with a swamp. The Earth was not formed until long after the creation of the first three worlds: the waters of the underworld; the air which included the higher world (i.e. the sun, the moon and the stars) and earth. Roog is the creator and fashioner of the Universe and everything in it. The creation is based on a mythical cosmic egg and the principles of chaos. the Universe and everything in it were created by Roog (or Koox among the Cangin), and the creation of Planet Earth was a result of a swamp which the first tree grew within. In Honor of this majestic tree, Akashic Grove retains that spirit of the jungle in each of its unique pieces, offering the spirit a continued existence within this new form as your furniture centerpiece.

African Mohogany Tree - Characteristics

Tree Size: 100-130 ft (30-40 m) tall
Trunk Diameter: 3-5 ft (1-1.5 m) trunk diameter
Appearance: Heartwood color is variable, ranging from a very pale pink to a deeper reddish brown, sometimes with streaks of medium to dark reddish brown. Color tends to darken with age. Quartersawn surfaces can also exhibit a ribbon-stripe appearance.
Grain/Texture: Grain is straight to interlocked, with a medium to coarse texture. Good natural luster with a light-refracting optical phenomenon known as chatoyancy.