Black bean

• Tall tree to 40m high.
• Stem diameter to 1.2m.
• Trunk is not obviously buttressed.
• Very dense crown consists of abundant dark-green glossy foliage.
• Large pendant bean-like fruit are clearly visible in the crown.
• Bark is slightly rough with very small pustules, and from grey to brown.

• Scattered throughout rainforest regions from Lismore, New South Wales to Iron Range, Cape York Peninsula.
• New Caledonia.
• Vanuatu.

Colour

• Heartwood ranges from dark brown to chocolate shades, deepening to almost black; sometimes streaked with lighter bands.
• Sapwood is white to yellow.

Grain

• Porous and coarse.
• Striated vessel lines are prominent on longitudinal surfaces, due to chalky, grey soft tissue (parenchyma) surrounding the vessels.

Engineering

• Used, in the past, as sawn and round timber in bridge construction and as mining timbers.

Construction

• Limited use, historically, for general house framing, and common use for flooring, lining, mouldings and joinery: rarely now used for these purposes.

Decorative

• Plywood, furniture, shop and office fixtures.
• Joinery, turnery, carving, inlay work.
• Walking sticks, umbrella sticks.

Others

• Gunstocks, knife handles.
• Vehicle and carriage building.
• Was popular for timber split fence posts during early settlement in the Atherton Tableland’s rainforests.

• Density: 755kg/m³ at 12% moisture content; approximately 1.3m³ of seasoned sawn timber per tonne.
• Strength groups: S4 unseasoned, (SD5) seasoned.
• Stress grades: F7, F8, F11, F14 (unseasoned), F8, F11, F14, F17 (seasoned), when visually stress-graded according to AS 2082—2000: Timber—Hardwood—Visually stress-graded for structural purposes.
• Joint groups: J3 unseasoned, JD2 seasoned.
• Shrinkage to 12% MC: 5.8% (tangential), 1.8% (radial).
• Unit shrinkage: 0.40% (tangential), 0.16% (radial)—these values apply to timber reconditioned after seasoning.
• Durability above-ground: Class 1 (life expectancy more than 40 years).
• Durability in-ground: Class 1 (life expectancy more than 25 years).
• Lyctine susceptibility: untreated sapwood susceptible to lyctine borer attack.
• Termite resistance: not resistant.
• Preservation: sapwood readily impregnates with preservatives but penetration of heartwood is negligible using available commercial processes.
• Seasoning: be careful when seasoning, as this species shrinks irregularly and is prone to collapse.
• Hardness: moderately hard (rated 3 on a 6-class scale) to indent and work with hand tools.
• Machining: machines, and turns well, to a smooth finish; dry dust can irritate your nose and throat.
• Fixing: no difficulty using standard fittings and fastenings.
• Gluing: satisfactorily bonds using standard procedures.
• Finishing: staining isn’t normally necessary; polishes well but the coarse texture may need prior filling.

General characteristics

• Sapwood: white to yellow, distinct from heartwood.
• Heartwood: dark brown to chocolate, sometimes with fine white streaks from vessel contents or more diffuse streaks due to soft tissue surrounding vessels.
• Texture: coarse, with some figure (pattern).

Wood structure

• Growth rings: absent.
• Vessels: medium to large, in radial rows but with some solitary; chalky, white deposits in some vessels.
• Parenchyma (soft tissue): abundant, aliform (resembling wings) with some confluent (merging).
• Rays: visible without a lens.

Other features

• Burning splinter test: match-size splinter produces a full-white to buff-coloured ash.
• Figure: Prominent figure (pattern) caused mainly by the parenchyma associated with vessels.

• Boland, DJ, Brooker, MIH, Chippendale, GM, Hall, N, Hyland, BPM, Johnston, RD, Kleinig, DA and Turner, JD 2006, Forest trees of Australia, 5th edn, CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood Australia.
• Bootle, K 2005, Wood in Australia: Types, properties and uses, 2nd ed., McGraw-Hill, Sydney.
• Ilic, J 1991, CSIRO atlas of hardwoods, Crawford House Press, Bathurst, Australia.
• Queensland Government, DAF 2018, Construction timbers in Queensland: properties and specifications for satisfactory performance of construction timbers in Queensland. Class 1 and Class 10 buildings, Books 1 & 2, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Brisbane.
• Standards Australia, 2000, AS 2082—2000: Timber—Hardwood—Visually stress-graded for structural purposes, Standards Australia International, Strathfield, NSW.