Scientific Name: Acacia melanoxylon

Growing in the wetter swamp areas of Northwest Tasmania, Blackwood is grown in large volumes for commercial use. It is definitely an 'appearance timber' with a heartwood that is a rich golden brown.

Blackwood is a member of the wattle family and is a hardwood. In Tasmania it has been a primary source of high-quality timber for more than a century and this resource has been the cornerstone of Tasmania's fine furniture industry over that time. 

It's colours range from light golden brown to deep brown with a straight or wavy grain. Blackwood is an easy tree to grow with swamp forests dedicated to its silviculture on a sustainable basis. 

Sustainability

The supply of Blackwood in Tasmania is drawn from two main sources:

• the blackwood swamps in north-western Tasmania; and
• as a secondary product (arisings) from the harvest of Blackwood-rich wet eucalypt forest.

The Blackwood swamps supply a sustainable sawlog yield with harvesting undertaken on a 70-year rotation.  Arisings from the harvest of wet eucalypt forest will continue, but at a reduced level, as the proportion of regrowth forest harvesting increases.  An additional resource is being created by the fenced-intensive-blackwood program, which established over 1500 ha of fenced eucalypt/blackwood regeneration between 1985 and 2005.

Blackwood forests constitute about 0.4% (29,700 ha) of the State’s forested area (3.3 million ha).