TEAK, the name of two kinds of timber, valuable for ship-building and other pur poses, one of which is known as INDIAN TEAK, and the other as AFRICAN TEAK. The trees which produce them belong to very different orders. INDIAN TEAK (tectona vrandis) is a tree of the natural order arbenacea. It is found in the mountainous parts of Malabar, and elsewhere in Hindustan, and in the Eastern Peninsula, Ceylon, Java, etc. It has been introduced in some parts of India, in which it is not indigenous. Dr. Roxburgh introduced it in the low grounds of the Circars as early as 1790. It has been planted in some parts of Ceylon, but not yet with much result, as it takes 60 or 80 years to grow to a large size. It is a beautiful tree, attaining a height sometimes even of 200 ft., and rising above all the other trees of the East Indian forests. It has decidu ous oval leaves of 12-24 in. long, covered with rough points; great panicles of white flowers, with 5-6 cleft corolla, and 4-celled drupes about the size of a hazel-uut. Its
flowers are used medicinally in cases of retention of urine, and its leaves by the Malays in cholera. Silk and cotton stuffs are dyed purple by the leaves. The timber is the most valuable produced in the East Indies; it is light and easily worked, strong, dur able, and not liable to the attacks of insects. It abounds in silex, and resembles coarse mahogany. It is extensively used for ship-building, for which purpose it is imported into Britain. All the finest ships built in India, and many built in England, are of teak. The most extensive teak forests are in Pegu. The teak generally rather grows in clumps in forests than forms forests of itself.—AFRICAN TEAK, sometimes called AFRICAN OAK, is a, timber similar to East Indian teak. It is now believed to be the produce of Olelfieldia Africana a tree of the natural order Euphorbiacem; but the leaves of many different trees have been brought to botanists as those of the African teak.