Silver ash

• Medium-sized tree, grows to 35m high.
• Stem to 1m diameter.
• Bole (trunk) is slim, usually well-formed and circular in cross-section.
• Bark is about 15mm thick, fairly smooth or finely warted.
• Usually recognised by swellings on the bole covering overgrown circles of broken-off limbs, giving it the local name of 'bumpy ash'.

Distributed mainly in the rainforest areas of northern New South Wales, and southern and northern Queensland:

• F. bourjotiana—Mt Fox (southwest of Ingham) to Cooktown
• F. schottiana—northern New South Wales to Gladstone; areas of the Atherton Tableland.

Colour

• Heartwood is silver-white to pale yellow.
• Sapwood and heartwood show no colour difference.

Grain

• Open and mostly straight.
• Slight grain deviation may occur associated with bumps on the log surface.
• Long straight vessel lines on longitudinal surfaces, but no obvious figure (pattern).

Decorative

• Furniture, plywood, laminated beams.
• Laminated bench tops, shop and office fixtures.
• Flooring, lining, joinery, mouldings, parquetry flooring.
• Turnery, carving, picture frames.

Others

• Boat building, marine plywood, structural plywood.
• Coach, vehicle and carriage building, aircraft construction.
• Used, in the past, for tool handles (axe, adze, pick), scaffold planks, sporting goods (baseball bats, archery bows, billiard cues, cricket stumps, skis), bent work, draughtsperson´s implements, gun stocks, drum sticks, dowelling, fishing rods, boat oars, walking sticks, brush stock, broom handles.

• Density: 640–675kg/m³ at 12% moisture content; about 1.5m³ 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, JD3 seasoned.
• Shrinkage to 12% MC: F. bourjotiana—5.5% (tangential), 3.0% (radial); F. shottiana—4.8% (tangential), 3.1% (radial).
• Unit shrinkage: 0.29–0.31% (tangential), 0.20–0.21% (radial)—these values apply to timber reconditioned after seasoning
• Durability above-ground: Class 3 (life expectancy 7–15 years).
• Durability in-ground: Class 3 (life expectancy 5–15 years).
• Lyctine susceptibility: untreated sapwood susceptible to lyctid borer attack.
• Termite resistance: not resistant.
• Preservation: sapwood readily impregnates with preservative, but penetration of heartwood is negligible using available commercial processes.
• Seasoning: satisfactorily dries using conventional air and kiln seasoning.
• Hardness: firm (rated 4 on a 6-class scale) to indent and work with hand tools.
• Machining: machines, and turns well, to a smooth surface.
• Fixing: no difficulty using standard fittings and fastenings.
• Gluing: satisfactorily bonds using standard procedures.
• Finishing: readily accepts stain, polish and paint.

General characteristics

• Sapwood: creamy white to pale yellow, indistinct from the heartwood.
• Heartwood: creamy white to pale yellow.
• Texture: medium and uniform, without figure (pattern) but has sheen.

Wood structure

• Growth rings: absent.
• Vessels: medium to small, arranged in short radial multiples; may contain yellowish deposits; visible vessel lines on longitudinal surfaces.
• Parenchyma (soft tissue): mostly in irregularly spaced, apotracheal bands.
• Rays: visible without a lens.

Other features

• Burning splinter test: match-size splinter burns to a full white ash.

• Boland, DJ, Brooker, MIH, Chippendale, GM, Hall, N, Hyland, BPM, Johnston, RD, Kleinig, DA and Turner, JD 2006, Forest trees of Australia, 5^th ed., CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Australia.
• Bootle, K 2005, Wood in Australia: Types, properties and uses, 2nd edn, 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, Australian Standard International, Strathfield, NSW.