Sonokeling Rosewood: The Javanese Timber Tree of Java

Sonokeling rosewood is the Indonesian name for Dalbergia latifolia, a rosewood tree of the Indian subcontinent that also grows in Java, where it has long been planted for its timber. The wood is heavy, dark-streaked and decorative, and furniture makers, carvers and guitar builders all work with it. If you are trying to identify the wood in a chair, a door frame or a guitar, the short answer is this: a medium to heavy, very durable hardwood with a figured, purplish-brown heartwood and a clearly separate pale sapwood.

The sonokeling rosewood tree, its names and where it grows

The tree belongs to the pea family, the legumes. In English its timber is most often sold as Indian rosewood or East Indian rosewood, and an older trade name is Bombay blackwood. Sonokeling is the Indonesian name. Trade names are not a reliable guide on their own: the name Indian rosewood is sometimes also used for sissoo, Dalbergia sissoo, a close relative from India whose wood is similar in appearance but less highly regarded, especially by guitar makers.

The natural range of the tree runs from the foothills of the Himalaya in Nepal southwards through India, where it grows scattered in dry monsoon forests. In Indonesia it grows wild in the seasonally dry forests of Central and East Java, as part of the monsoon forest that sheds its leaves in the dry season, and it has been part of the Javanese landscape for a long time.

How the tree grows

Mature trees are medium-sized to large, reaching heights of up to about 40 metres, with a straight bole that can stay free of branches for a long stretch and a rounded to dome-shaped crown. The tree is evergreen in moist places but deciduous in drier ones, dropping its leaves in the dry season, and older trees are very drought-resistant. It can cope with a long dry season, which is why it does well in the monsoon climate of Central and East Java.

The leaves are compound, each with a small number of leaflets, usually five to seven, arranged alternately along the stalk and often unequal in size. The flowers are small and whitish, borne in loose, branched clusters. The fruit is a thin, flat pod that does not split open when ripe and holds one to a few seeds.

Young trees grow slowly, and that slow growth is one of the main reasons the timber is so valuable. Plantations of the tree have remained largely confined to India and Java. Like many legumes, its roots carry nodules with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, so the tree can help improve the soil around it.

Wood structure, density and working properties

The heartwood ranges from golden brown to dark purplish brown, with very dark brown to black streaks that give the surface its decorative figure. The sapwood is whitish to yellowish and sharply set apart from the heartwood. The grain is straight to wavy and often interlocked, and the wood has a fairly fine to medium texture.

In density the wood is medium to heavy, placing it among the weightier furniture timbers. The heartwood is very durable, resisting dry-wood termites and wood-rotting fungi, which suits its use in door and window frames. The pale sapwood, by contrast, is perishable, and the heartwood is hard to treat with preservatives.

Working the wood is where makers notice its character. The density and interlocked grain make it somewhat difficult to work, particularly with hand tools, although it machines well, can be planed to a smooth surface, and turns and glues well. Dust and shavings can irritate the skin, and the wood has been reported as a sensitiser, so anyone sanding or turning it regularly should keep the dust down and protect their skin.

Uses of sonokeling timber in furniture, joinery and instruments

High-grade furniture is the most important use. Cabinets, chairs, tables and other fine household furniture are made from sonokeling, and the figure of the wood is the reason it is chosen over plainer timbers. It is one of the most popular woods for carving, and it is also used for turned pieces and for bent-wood articles such as walking sticks and umbrella handles.

Veneer is a major outlet. The wood slices and peels into attractive decorative veneers, and it is used to face high-grade plywood. Its strength and durability make it suitable for constructional work such as doors and window frames, and it has long been used for the handles of heavy hammers and axes and for farm implements such as ploughs and harrows.

Musical instruments are the other well-known use. Guitar makers have used East Indian rosewood widely for acoustic guitar bodies and fingerboards. Its density and figure both make it attractive to instrument builders, and it is also made into sports equipment.

Plantation timber and the supply on Java

Java is, with India, one of the two places where sonokeling is grown as a plantation timber. Plantations in Java date back to the late nineteenth century, and they are usually managed as pure stands planted closely so that the trees grow the long, straight boles that the timber trade wants.

The tree is also popular in Indonesian agroforestry. Farmers grow it in intercropping systems alongside food crops such as upland rice, maize, cassava or beans, and in mixed tree gardens with fruit trees. The leaves are used as livestock fodder and green manure, and because the tree fixes nitrogen it can help restore fertility on poorer ground.

For a buyer or a designer, plantation origin is useful to know. Plantations make the supply more dependable and avoid the questions that come with felling wild trees. Plantation stands do have their own problems: a fungal disease has caused serious damage to older plantations in Java, affecting both the leaves and the wood.

The wider conservation picture matters too. High demand has led to heavy harvesting, natural stands have been depleted, and large wild trees have become rare in many areas. The species is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. For a reader, the lesson is that a reliable supply depends on managed planting, and that timber of unclear origin is a warning sign.

The CITES listing and what it means for trade

Rosewoods of the genus Dalbergia, sonokeling among them, are covered by CITES, the international treaty that regulates trade in threatened species, through a listing of the whole genus in its Appendix II. The listing does not ban trade. It means that international shipments of the timber, and of some products made from it, need the correct export paperwork so that trade can be checked against the species’ conservation needs. The rules for finished items have been adjusted over time, so they should be checked before anything is shipped.

In practice this matters most for guitars, instrument parts and high-value furniture that cross borders. A piece made from sonokeling can be lawful to own and sell at home while still needing documents for export or import. Makers and buyers who work across borders should ask suppliers for their CITES paperwork before shipping, not after the goods arrive at customs.

Sonokeling among the timber trees of Java

Sonokeling is one of several valuable timbers grown in Java and across the archipelago. For comparison with another plantation hardwood used in furniture, read about the mahogany trees grown on Java. Fast-growing trees such as the sengon tree on Java sit at the other end of the scale, with light wood that grows quickly. For the timbers of the great natural forests further west, see meranti wood in Indonesia.

The climate that suits sonokeling, with its marked dry season, is part of the wider pattern described in the geography and climate of Indonesia. Planted trees are a familiar sight in towns and along roads too, and the trembesi rain tree is one of the best-known shade trees. Sonokeling is different because it is grown above all for its wood, and its value rests on the quality of the heartwood. Other useful trees of the islands appear in puspa tree and in Timber and Shade Trees of Indonesia: Wood, Shade and Coast.

What to take away

Three kinds of reader tend to come to sonokeling. The first is someone looking at a piece of furniture, a veneer or a door frame made from dark rosewood and trying to work out whether the timber is sonokeling. The second is a maker or buyer comparing sonokeling with other rosewoods for instruments, carving or joinery. The third is someone curious about the tree itself and how it came to be such a feature of Java’s forests and farms.

The short version is this. Sonokeling is Dalbergia latifolia, a rosewood of India and Nepal that also grows in the dry forests of Central and East Java and is planted there in quantity. It is a medium to heavy, very durable hardwood with a decorative, dark-streaked heartwood, somewhat demanding to work by hand but good to machine, turn and glue. It is prized for furniture, decorative veneer, frames, carving and guitars, it is listed as Vulnerable, and its international trade is regulated under CITES. The best supply comes from managed plantations, and buyers should ask about origin before committing to a purchase.