Ochroma lagopus

The test seeds used for the bioassays were Mimosa pudica, Achyranthes aspera, Bidens pilosa, and Crusea calocephala (herbaceous species) Ochroma lagopus and Heliocarpus donell-smithil (arboreal species). 

Paula VF, Barbosa LCA, Demuner AJ, Howarth OW, Veloso DP (1996) Chemical Constituents of Ochroma lagopus Swartz. Qurm Nova 19 225 Chem Abstr 124 337858... 

Wood contains air and water as well as wood substances. Wood, when oven-dry, contains only air and woody tissue. The oven-dry density of any species is a direct reflection of the amount of space occupied by wood tissue. Wood densities can vary from 50 kg m with balsa (Ochroma lagopus) to 1400 kg m with lignum vitae (Guaiacum officinale), although most commercial species have densities between 350 and 800 kg m. The proportion of air space to total wood volume can be estimated from the oven-dry density of the timber. Consider a timber having an oven-dry density of 500 kg m . A cubic metre of such a timber would contain 500 kg of woody material whose density is roughly 1500 kg m . This means that the wood substances occupy some 0.33 m leaving 0.67 m " as air space, i.e. two-thirds of the volume is air space. This calculation emphasizes the porosity of most dry wood. 

Curiously this schedule also applies to balsa, Ochroma lagopus, as well as to some bopical... 

Balsa lb61-so [Sp] (ca 1600) n. Wood from the tree Ochroma lagopus, Ecuador. Its density is only 0.12-0.2 g/cm, yet it has good strength, especially end-grain compressive strength, so it has found application as an interlayer in reinforced-plastics. 

Wiedemann [130] used samples of redwood Sequoia sempervirens), balsa Ochroma pyramidale/lagopus), quebracho bianco Aspidosperma quebracho-bianco) and beech wood (Fagus spec.) to determine the mechanical properties of wood by means of TMA and DSC. Flexure measurements as depicted in Figure 23 show different, highly reproducible onset temperatures for breakdown in the chosen samples from the very light balsa wood to the very hard South American quebracho bianco and - for comparison - bamboo. TMA together with DSC results indicates that such breakdowns take place only after the complete decomposition of cellulose. 

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