Today I planted an ebony tree that I got from Ken Love. He sprouted maybe 100 seeds and I was lucky enough to get one of them. I might be wrong, but I think this one is the African type Diospyros crassiflora. At $17,000 a cubic meter, this is a very dense, highly attractive and valuable wood. Traditionally the black keys on pianos, black chess pieces, firearm grips, oboes, clarinets, and many other instruments and carvings were made with ebony. It is extremely slow growing and it takes about 150 years for the wood to turn pitch black.
In the last three generations humans have over harvested ebony to a point where in a couple more decades they will most likely become extinct in the wild. So maybe let’s stop buying ebony for a while and plant more of it. Let’s do this!
Originally posted on 2021-07-28, part of the daily planting journal behind Ha’a Chocolate’s food forest on Hawai’i Island.