Australian Wood Review

Our Southern Comfort

Australian (not just Tasmanian) blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) is a native to our little Victorian tree farm. It grows naturally right around the south-east corner of the continent and up the east coast to Queensland. In most areas, it is a nondescript bushy shrub with a rounded canopy, multiple stems and heavy branches that wouldn’t provide so much as a candlestick. But, on the right site – with deepsoils, fresh water and shelter from drying winds – blackwoodcandevelopintoagood size tree with a large clean mill log.

The tallest blackwood I’ve seen were in the native swamp forests of north-west Tasmania. The largest I’ve measured were in a 100-year-old plantation near Rotorua in New Zealand, which I took as evidence that blackwood

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