Botanical Name - Dalbergia latifolia

----- D. latifolia, Roxb. ; F.B.I. II-231. Brandi's Ind. Trees, 233. Gamble's Ind. Timbers, 250. Vern. Shisham, Hind., Jit-eggi, Tel. Shisham, Sissu, Mar. The " Black wood " or " Rose-wood."

----- A large deciduous tree. Bark grey, with irregular short cracks, exfoliating in thin, fibrous, longitudinal flakes. Leaflets 3-7, broadly-elliptic ; orbicular or elliptic-obovate, obtuse, sometimes emarginate, 1/2-3 in. long. Flowers whitish, 1/4 in. long, on pedicels nearly as long as calyx-tube, in short axillary much-branched panicles. Calyx 1/8 - 1/6 in. ; teeth obtuse, rather shorter than the tube. Stamens 9. Corolla twice the length of the calyx. Pod oblong lanceolate, 1-4-seeded.

----- Found throughout the Hyderabad forests, but mostly along the Godavari in the Mahadeopur and Pakhal Reserves and the adjoining forests, and also in the Amrabad Reserve, but nowhere abundant. It is also found in the Kannad Reserve in Aurangabad, but the wood is seldom of good size and is often crooked. Often planted in avenues or road-sides. It has a spreading crown with thicks boughs and tough in S. India and Malabar it attains a considerable size, the trunk sometimes measuring 15 ft. in circumference, in the Hyderabad forests it seldom exceeds 4 ft. in girth and the wood alsois often not so dark-coloured. It is nowhere very common and usually isolated trees only are found generally in deep shaded ravines. It is very slow-growing, and hence mature trees are rapidly getting more scarce. The Wood is extremely hard and close-grained ; sap-wood yellow, small ; heart-wood dark purple with black longitudinal streaks ; no distinct annual rings ; weight about 55 lbs. per c. ft. It is a very valuable wood and is employed for cabinet-work and furniture of every description, its close grain and extreme hardness admitting of the finest finish and polish. It is also used for carving, turnery and ornamental work. It is easily propagated by seed and comes up well self-sown ; it is coppices well. Flowers generally in July, but sometimes earlier.