A new ATIBT technical sheet is available

Doussié - Track of the Velodrome Stadium in Bordeaux – France (© APC Viaud - AXEL VEGA)

This 15th technical sheet concerns the commercial African species of the genus Afzelia and the genus Pterocarpus, and the evolution of their classification in the general nomenclature of tropical woods.

The genus Afzelia Smith gathers seven species in Africa, four of which are closely related and are generally marketed as "doussié", a highly sought after timber.
The genus Pterocarpus includes about 20 species in Africa. This technical sheet discusses three species of Pterocarpus whose wood is marketed under the pilot name "African padouk".

The sheets describes the characteristics of the species marketed under the names "doussié" and "African padouk", the differences in quality between the species, as well as their differences in geographical distribution, which justify the choice of assigning a specific pilot name to each commercial species of the genus Afzelia and Pterocarpus marketed under the names "doussié”" and "African padouk".

This document was written by Emmanuel Groutel (Wale) and Jean Gérard (CIRAD), respectively President and Secretary of the ATIBT Timber Material & Normalisation commission.

The document will be translated to English in few weeks.

As a reminder, all the technical sheets are on this link on ATIBT website: https://www.atibt.org/en/media/34/tropical-wood-and-processing-publications

Download the technical sheet (in French)