Zebrawood 4/4 and 8/4

Color/Appearance: Heartwood is a light brown or cream color with dark blackish brown streaks vaguely resembling a zebra’s stripes. Depending on whether the wood is flatsawn or quartersawn, the stripes can be either wide and erratic (flatsawn), or somewhat narrow and uniform (quartersawn).

Grain/Texture: Grain is interlocked and/or wavy; uniform, medium to coarse texture with good natural luster.

Rot Resistance: Heartwood is rated as durable and is also resistant to insect damage.

Workability: The wood saws well, but can be very difficult to plane or surface due to the prevalence of interlocking grain. Tearout is common. Zebrawood glues and finishes well, though a transparent pore filler may be necessary for the large open pores which occur on both dark and light surfaces.

Odor: Has a characteristic, unpleasant smell when being worked.

Allergies/Toxicity: Although severe reactions are quite uncommon, zebrawood has been reported as a sensitizer. Usually most common reactions simply include eye and skin irritation. See the articles Wood Allergies and Toxicity and Wood Dust Safety for more information.

Pricing/Availability: Tends to be available in both veneer and lumber form, with good sizes available. Prices are high, even for an imported hardwood, though not necessarily as prohibitively expensive as scarcer African imports such as Gaboon ebony (Diospyros crassiflora) or pink ivory (Berchemia zeyheri).

Sustainability: This wood species is not listed in the CITES Appendices, but is on the IUCN Red List. It is listed as vulnerable due to a population reduction of over 20% in the past three generations, caused by a decline in its natural range. However, a closely-related (though lesser-used) species endemic to Cameroon, Microberlinia bisulcata, is also sold interchangeably as zebrawood and is listed as endangered.

Common Uses: Zebrawood is frequently quartersawn and used as veneer. Other uses include tool handles, furniture, musical instruments, boatbuilding, carvings, turned objects, and skis.

Comments: Sometimes called zebrano, the wood is strong and stiff, with a fairly high density. However, the wood is much more frequently used for its bold and unique striping.

The species name, brazzavillensis, is named after Brazzaville, the capital city of the Republic of the Congo. Although the species occurs more frequently in West Africa, French botanist Auguste Chevalier (1873-1956) ended up using a specimen collected near Brazzaville, in conjunction with previous specimens from Gabon, to first describe both the species itself and the (then) new genus, Microberlinia.