Mangium - Acacia Mangium

Family: Fabaceae / Mimosoidae - Order: Fabales - Class: Magnoliopsida

Scientific name: Acacia mangium

Trade name:: Wattle / Mangium

Also known as Black wattle, brown salwood, hickory wattle, mange, Australian teak

Origin: Northeast Australia, New Guinea and Indonesia.

Instrumental uses:
Guitar back and sides, Soundboards, fingerboards, bridges, head plates and bindings.

Tonal properties:

The taptone is very similar to Acacia melanoxylon but with a slightly softer tone, and very loud sounding with deep basses. Produces a great Classical Guitar or Ukelele, it is very easy to work, turns and glues well, is able to take a very high natural polish. After finishing the instrument will be very beautiful: Yellowish-brown with light/dark stripes and sometimes olive green stripes.

Is a moderately dense wood, depending on the place where it grows, with an average dried weight nearly of 32 lbs/ft3 or 515 (kg/m3), usually in Portugal it is more dense.

Acacia mangium has very fast growth and, mainly, being a nitrifying specie, due to the climatic diversity in Portugal it can be found even on the north of the country. Very invasive species that presents an optimal growth from sea level to 720 meters above sea level, with temperatures between 12 and 34 ° C, rainfall from 1500 to 4500 mm / year, so it can be found in various temperate and tropical zones of the globe, such as:

 USA, Central America, East Asia, Macau, Timor, Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, West Papua, Papua New Guinea, Philippines; Vietnam, Australia, Northern Territory; Australia, Queensland and few more places with proper conditions to grow.

Is a tree up to 25 to 30m, higher than the Acacia melanoxylon (Australian Blackwood), has a straight shaft and free of branches up to more than half of the total height, although outside its natural range, it shows the tendency to produce more than one axis and to fork at different heights.

The color of Acacia mangium is creamy coffee colour and the heartwood is dark grey, brown, dark yellowish coffee and sometimes with olive-green bands/stripes.

CITES status is unrestricted. Is not reported on the IUCN Red List.