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Color/Appearance: Heartwood is light to medium reddish brown. Wide pale yellow-brown sapwood is clearly demarcated from heartwood.
Grain/Texture: Has a straight to interlocked grain, with a medium to coarse texture. Good natural luster.
Endgrain: Diffuse-porous; large pores in no specific arrangement, few; solitary and radial multiples of 2-3; heartwood deposits present; narrow rays faintly visible without lens, normal spacing; parenchyma vasicentric,lozenge, winged, confluent, and marginal.
Rot Resistance: Mora is rated as durable to very durable, and also has good resistance to insect attacks.
Workability: Pieces with interlocked grain can be difficult to work, frequently resulting in tearout during machining operations. Mora also has a pronounced blunting effect on cutting edges.
Odor: Mora can have an unpleasant and sour odor while being worked.
Allergies/Toxicity: Mora has been reported to cause respiratory irritation. See the articles Wood Allergies and Toxicityand Wood Dust Safetyfor more information.
Pricing/Availability: Mora is used within its native range, and is only occasionally exported. When available, prices should be moderate for an imported hardwood.
Sustainability: This wood species is not listed in the CITES Appendices or on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Common Uses: Flooring, boatbuilding, heavy (exterior) construction, and turned objects.
Comments: Not to be confused with a striped Guatemalan wood that is also sometimes marketed as “Mora,”which is almost universally mislabeled as Maclura tinctoria. Mora excelsa can be distinguished by a more uniform and consistent color, as well as a coarser texture and an unpleasant sour odor when being worked.
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