Teak

Scientific

Tectona grandis is in family Lamiaceae (the mint family — recent molecular work moved teak out of the older Verbenaceae). A large deciduous tree reaching 30–40 m with massive ovate leaves (often 30–60 cm long), small white flowers in large terminal panicles, and small fruits each containing 1–4 seeds. Drops leaves during the dry season, which is the basis of the wood’s exceptional dimensional stability — the tree has evolved to handle large seasonal moisture swings, and that translates to wood that resists shrinkage, warping, and splitting under wet-dry cycling.

The wood’s durability comes from natural impregnation with tectoquinone (a 2-methylanthraquinone) and high silica content. Heartwood is golden brown when freshly cut, weathering to a silver-grey if left untreated outdoors — both colors are aesthetically prized. The tree’s natural range is the seasonally dry monsoon forests of India, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and parts of Indonesia (Java was historically considered an introduced range but recent work suggests teak may be ancient on Java as well).

Cultural

Teak has been the premier shipbuilding timber of Indian Ocean and Southeast Asian maritime traditions for over a thousand years. Indian dhow-builders, Burmese royal river fleets, Vietnamese and southern Chinese junks, Indonesian pinisi schooners — all relied on teak. The British Royal Navy in the 18th and 19th centuries built warship decks of Burmese teak and stripped Burma’s forests heavily during the colonial period to supply demand; the Burmese teak industry was a major colonial economic prize. In Java, teak is jati and has been a controlled state-managed crop since Dutch colonial times — the Indonesian state forestry enterprise Perhutani still manages large teak plantations on Java.

Teak temple-architecture is a major tradition in Myanmar and Thailand (Burmese monasteries, the teak palaces of Mandalay) and in southern India and Sri Lanka. Old-growth teak structures often survive several centuries of tropical exposure with minimal maintenance.

Global production

Indonesia (Java), Myanmar (until recent export restrictions and political conflict), India, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam are native-range producers. Plantation teak — much faster-growing but with shorter rotations and different wood characteristics than wild old-growth — is now produced in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil, and elsewhere. The market increasingly differentiates old-growth Burmese teak, plantation Javanese teak, and African/Latin American plantation teak by grade.

Conservation status

Wild Tectona grandis populations are IUCN-listed Endangered in native range. CITES Appendix-II listing for Myanmar teak was proposed and adopted to control international trade. Plantation production reduces but does not eliminate pressure on native forests.

See also

Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.

• Shares approach with: [[mahogany]]
• Member of: [[plants]]

Sources

• CITES Appendix II — Tectona grandis (Myanmar populations)
• TEAKNET — international teak research network
• Wikipedia — Teak

A plant entry in the 0mn1.one [[directory]].