Red bloodwood

• Medium-sized hardwood tree.
• Grows to 35m high and 1m diameter.
• Reddish brown, scaly bark covers the whole tree.
• Freely exudes red-coloured kino gum.

• Relatively common in coastal areas from New South Wales to Queensland.

Colour

• Heartwood is dark pink, deep red to red-brown, often with an abundance of kino veins.
• Sapwood is pale pink to light brown.

Grain

• Grain is generally interlocked and coarse.
• Kino veins are often large and concentric.

• Engineering: used, previously, as poles, piles, sleepers and mining timbers.
• Construction: fencing and house stumps.
• Others: hardboard manufacture.

• Density: 1010kg/m³ at 12% moisture content; about 1.0m³ of seasoned, sawn timber per tonne.
• Strength groups: S3 unseasoned, (SD3) seasoned (brackets indicate provisional value).
• Stress grades. F8, F11, F14, F17 (unseasoned); F14, F17, F22, F27 (seasoned) when visually stress-graded according to AS 2082—2000: Timber—Hardwood—Visually stress-graded for structural purposes.
• Joint groups: J1 unseasoned, JD1 seasoned.
• Shrinkage to 12% MC: 4.0% (tangential), 3.0% (radial).
• Unit shrinkage: not available.
• Durability above-ground: Class 1 (life expectancy more than 40 years).
• Durability in-ground: Class 1 (life expectancy more than 25 years).
• Lyctine susceptibility: untreated sapwood susceptible to lyctid borer attack.
• Termite resistance: C. gummifera and C. polycarpa are not resistant; C. intermedia is resistant.
• Preservation: sapwood readily impregnates with preservative.
• Seasoning: seasons satisfactorily but the kino veins may open.
• Hardness: very hard (rated 1 on a 6-class scale) to indent and working with hand tools.
• Machining: due to kino veins, red bloodwood is usually used as a round, rather than sawn, timber.
• Fixing: no difficulty using standard fittings and fastenings.
• Gluing: as with most high-density species, machine and prepare surface immediately before gluing.
• Finishing: readily accepts paint, stain and polish.

General characteristics

• Sapwood: pale pink to light brown, distinct from heartwood.
• Heartwood: pale pink, light red to dark red, red-brown (majority).
• Texture: coarse open texture, often interlocked grain; concentric gum veins are common.

Wood structure

• Growth rings: absent, but some specimens have zonate vessel formations.
• Vessels: medium to large, visible to the unaided eye, numerous; double and multiple pores in radial alignment; prominent vessel lines; vessels tylosed.
• Parenchyma (soft tissue): very abundant, diffuse and paratracheal—may form zonate bands.
• Rays: fine.

Other features

• Burning splinter test: match-size splinter burns to charcoal.

• Boland, DJ, Brooker, MIH, Chippendale, GM, Hall, N, Hyland, BPM, Johnston, RD, Kleinig, DA and Turner, JD 2006, Forest trees of Australia, 5th ed., CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood Australia.
• Bootle, K 2005, Wood in Australia: Types, properties and uses, 2nd ed., McGraw-Hill, Sydney.
• Ilic, J 1991, CSIRO atlas of hardwoods, Crawford House Press, Bathurst, Australia.
• Queensland Government, DAF 2018, Construction timbers in Queensland: Properties and specifications for satisfactory performance of construction timbers in Queensland. Class 1 and Class 10 buildings, Books 1 & 2, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Brisbane.
• Standards Australia, 2000, AS 2082—2000: Timber—Hardwood—Visually stress-graded for structural purposes, Standards Australia International, Strathfield, NSW.