• Grows to 20m tall.
• Bark is light to dark grey, rough, and fibrous.
• Bark remains attached on the lower branches.
• Typical ‘box-type’ bark.

• Widespread and abundant in drier areas of the Australian east coast, ranging from Hay in New South Wales to Rockhampton (20–30°S) in Queensland.
• Common on light-textured red loams, but soils vary.
• Grows on black soil plains.

Colour

• Pale brown to dark brown—may depend on the soil type and water available.

Grain

• Wavy figure (pattern).
• Fine texture.

Engineering

• Fence posts and rails.
• Musical instrument-making e.g. xylophones and bagpipes.

Construction

• Bush furniture.

Others

• Fuel wood.
• Carbon opportunities.
• Charcoal.

• Density: 1090kg/m³ at 12% moisture content; about 0.74m³ of seasoned sawn timber per tonne.
• Strength groups: (S2) unseasoned, (SD2) seasoned.
• Stress grades: F11, F14, F17, F22 (unseasoned), F17, F22, F27, F34 (seasoned) when visually stress-graded according to AS 2082—2000: Timber—Hardwood—Visually stress-graded for structural purposes.
• Joint groups: JD1 seasoned.
• Shrinkage to 12% moisture content: 4.0% (tangential), 2.8% (longitudinal).
• Unit shrinkage: not available.
• 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.
• Seasoning: dries slowly with little degrading.
• Hardness: very hard (rated 1 on a 6-class scale) to indent and work with hand tools.
• Machining: unknown.
• Fixing: wood is moderately fissile (easily split)—be careful when using standard fittings and fastenings.
• Gluing: satisfactory.
• Finishing: readily accepts paint, stain and polish.

General characteristics

• Sapwood: paler and distinct from heartwood.
• Heartwood: generally deep red but may be lighter in younger growth.
• Texture: uniform, coarse grain, often interlocked; occasional tight gum veins.

Wood structure

• Growth rings: generally absent, but some show vessels arranged in zones.
• Vessels: medium size, solitary, distributed in a diffuse pattern; vessel lines obvious on longitudinal surfaces; contain frequent tyloses and dark-red gum deposits.
• Parenchyma (soft tissue): variable amount, not abundant; diffuse and paratracheal.
• Rays: fine, visible only with a lens.

Other features

• Burning splinter test: match-size splinter burns to charcoal without ash.

• 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.