Thread: Bocoa prouacensis

Sorry for any confusion here ...

The boards in the pictures are not for sale. I posted the pictures because Bocoa prouacensis needs more attention and you will be hard pressed to find any pictures of big boards of this species anywhere. it's not like there are many around. Apparently, this species was selling fairly well in China until recently.

There are an estimated 125.7 million of these trees essentially confined to Suriname and French Guiana. The tree diameters reach 50cm-60cm but the sapwood is very thick; 10-15cm. Here's a picture from the web of what I am reasonably sure are Boco logs:

YZH-Round-Logs.jpg

You can imagine that wide boards are tough to get but the tree can reach 30m so 2.4m boards are possible. If you want some of this wood, the only source of which I am aware is here. Here are some pictures from French Guiana of the trees. Again, the wood is very dense:

freyburger2009.jpg

or

herault2010b.jpg

or

bremaud2012a.jpg

bremaud2012b.jpg

Hi Folks,

It's been said before but I wanted to show you this:

AUB_Hist_Pl_Guiane_2_449.jpg

Notice that it says "LE BOCO d'Aprouak." So, between Cayenne and the Brazilian Boarder with French Guiana, along the Atlantic is the Approuague River. This is where the tree is common. Now lets play with words.

Begin with

BOCO || d'Aprouak || censis

to get

BOCOA || proua || censis

The most similar wood to Boco is Zollernia paraensis (Pau Santo) . However, Pau Santo is nearly black and the sapwood is whiter without that orange tint. Boco is also a bit more dense. The dirty black color is what most boards look like and the sapwood on the second board is the right color for the species. There are an estimated 120.9 million Zollernia paraensis trees out there.

Unfortunately, Zollernia paraensis is no longer imported into the U.S. That goes for a lot of other heavyweights ... that importer also brought in Aniba canelilla & Chamaecrista scleroxylon.


232.jpgZ_paraensis_1371.jpgimg_1303.jpg

I think that you might find that shipping and customs might be too expensive for most people in Aus when it comes to importing heavy and long timbers from overseas.

Hi Wood Collector,

What can I say? My principal intent of the thread was to put out some information on a virtually invisible wood species. I am told that I have been the only one who has requested Boco lumber. Most people want small pieces. The same thing is likely true of Libidibia sclerocarpa. Any exceptional wood that isn't mainstream will not be easy to source or purchase. If ease of purchase where a criterion for posting here, the discussion would get pretty boring.

If you think Boco lumber is expensive, what do you think a similar pile of Gidgee lumber would cost (if you could even find anyone who had it to sell) someone outside of Australia??

Let me answer my own question. If lumber were to cost $AUD14/kg, then

<style type="text/css"> body,div,table,thead,tbody,tfoot,tr,th,td,p { font-family:"Arial"; font-size:x-small } </style>

kg/m^3	kg/SF	$AUD/SF	$USD/SF
1250	2.950	41.30	33.49
1260	2.973	41.63	33.75
1270	2.997	41.96	34.02
1280	3.020	42.29	34.29
1290	3.044	42.62	34.56
1300	3.068	42.95	34.83
1310	3.091	43.28	35.09
1320	3.115	43.61	35.36
1330	3.138	43.94	35.63
1340	3.162	44.27	35.90
1350	3.186	44.60	36.17

So, if 50% of the timber is clean, we're up at about $USD70/SF (0.8109 USD = 1.0 AUD today). The Boco boards were $USD40/SF ($AUD49.33/SF) and Boco is denser than Gidgee.

The bottom line is that first world nations cannot compete with third world labor rates!!

It looks quite similar to katalox (swartzia cubensis)...do you have any idea how they compare as far as far as workability and available sizes?

Hi fudo133,

Katalox is genetically close to Boco. This clip shows it well.

cardoso2013a.jpg

I can't offer much insight into workability except to say that the Boco should be quite a bit harder (where it's compared to Ipe). I think Ipe (often Handroanthus serratifolius) is probably a tiny bit denser than Katalox.

As to availablility, Katalox is far easier to get than Boco. Over the last decade, I am only aware of one importer who brought Boco in and actually was able to correctly identify it.