Matti (Indian Laurel) Wood (Terminalia elliptica): Properties, Density & Uses

What Matti is

Matti is the South-Indian trade name — Kannada and Malayalam — for the timber that most of the world's reference books file under Indian laurel, Terminalia elliptica.² It carries a confusing tangle of names, and a buyer needs to know them, because most of the published technical data is printed not under the accepted name but under its synonyms Terminalia tomentosa and Terminalia alata — these are the same wood.²³ Across India it also answers to saj or saaj and asna in the north and east, marutham in Tamil, ain in Marathi, and karimaruthu (കരധമരുത്) in Kerala Malayalam.² The English “Indian laurel” and the nickname “crocodile-bark tree” both attach to it — the second from its thick, deeply tessellated grey-black bark, which really does resemble crocodile hide.²

It belongs to the family Combretaceae and is one of the most abundant and characteristic trees of India's deciduous forests. Botanically a hardwood, it lives up to the label: this is a genuinely heavy, hard and strong timber, a world away from the light peeler species used for plywood core.¹ The heartwood is light-to-dark brown, often handsomely variegated with darker streaks and sharply marked off from the pale reddish-white sapwood; grain is fairly straight though it can run interlocked, the texture is coarse, the surface dull to slightly lustrous, and the wood has no particular smell or taste.²³

Where it grows and how it is sourced

Terminalia elliptica is native across South and South-East Asia — India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, with some cultivation in southern China.²³ Within India it is a co-dominant of both dry and moist deciduous forests through central and peninsular India, growing up to about 1,000 m and often sharing ground with teak. The tree is deciduous and typically reaches 20–30 m in height — occasionally 35 m — on a bole that can run up to about two metres across.²³

Two things about its supply matter to a buyer. First, Matti is overwhelmingly a natural-forest timber: it comes from government and reserved-forest coupes and depots, not from plantations, because — unlike teak or rubberwood — it is not grown as a large-scale plantation crop.² Second, it is valued alive as well as felled: it is a primary host of the tasar silkworm, which ties it to tribal sericulture livelihoods in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha.² For Kerala the species is present in the state's deciduous forests and is documented locally as karimaruthu, but the bulk commercial Matti sawn-timber trade sits in central and peninsular India rather than on our own doorstep.

Density and hardness

Matti's headline property is weight. Independent references put its air-dry density in the region of 800–870 kg/m³ at 12% moisture — the Wood Database gives about 855 kg/m³ and the USDA Forest Products Laboratory around 865 kg/m³, both from the T. tomentosa material.¹⁴ Some trade sources quote a wider spread of 700–1,000 kg/m³ reflecting different provenances, and one “T. alata” figure reaches about 1,040 kg/m³; we treat 800–870 kg/m³ as the reliable working number and anything near 1,000 as a dense, heavy parcel.¹ Either way this is a heavy hardwood, roughly twice the weight of a light peeler such as okoume.

Hardness agrees with the density and is one of the better-settled numbers: Janka side hardness of about 2,340 lbf (10,390 N) dry.¹⁵ The Forest Products Laboratory reports a range of 2,100–2,340 lbf dry, dropping to 1,505–1,850 lbf when green.⁴ That places Matti in the hard-maple-to-hickory band — hard enough to resist denting and abrasion, and hard enough to be stubborn under hand tools.

Strength and stiffness

The strength data match the picture of a solid structural hardwood. At 12% moisture the Wood Database reports a modulus of rupture (bending strength) of about 101 MPa, a modulus of elasticity (stiffness) near 12.5 GPa, and crushing strength parallel to the grain of about 57 MPa.¹ Green-condition testing by the Forest Products Laboratory gives lower figures — roughly 78 MPa rupture and 11.4 GPa stiffness at around 38% moisture — exactly the relationship you expect, with the two datasets sitting consistently either side of the drying line.⁴ For a packing or structural buyer the takeaway is simple: Matti is strong and stiff enough to carry real load.

Working, nailing and seasoning

On the machine, Matti behaves well — it is rated a good turnery wood, works to a smooth surface, and its general response to machining is good.⁴ By hand, or where the grain runs interlocked, it turns awkward and prone to tearout; the Wood Database calls it generally easy to work while confirming that irregular grain causes trouble.¹⁴ The point that matters most for packing is fastening: because it is hard and dense, Matti tends to split and is reported difficult to nail and to glue, so pre-boring for nails and screws is advisable in crate and pallet framing.⁴

Seasoning is where Matti earns its “difficult” reputation. It is a refractory timber that dries slowly, especially in thick sections, and is liable to checking, cupping and end-splitting unless air- or kiln-dried carefully with the ends protected.⁴ The Forest Products Laboratory suggests kiln schedules T3-C2 for 4/4 stock and T3-C1 for 8/4.⁴ Movement is only moderate in absolute terms — radial shrinkage about 4.8%, tangential about 7.4% (both green to oven-dry) — but the tangential-to-radial ratio of roughly 1.5 is what drives the warping and checking, and the Wood Database and the FPL agree on these figures.¹⁴

Durability and treatability

Untreated, Matti is only moderately durable, and the sources are candid that its decay resistance is variable rather than dependable.¹⁴³ More important for storage and packing, its insect resistance is poor and the sapwood is notably liable to powder-post beetle attack.¹⁴ The saving grace is treatability: the sapwood takes preservative, and for demanding service — railway sleepers are the classic example — Matti is used treated.² The practical rule for a buyer is to treat any Matti that will face humidity, ground contact or long storage, and never to rely on untreated sapwood.

Sustainability and sourcing

Terminalia elliptica has been assessed for the IUCN Red List (species ID 169578245) and is widely reported as Least Concern, which fits its very large range and abundance across Indian deciduous forests.⁶ It is not on the CITES appendices.² Some older trade write-ups still say the species is “not evaluated” — that is out of date, an assessment does exist, though anyone making a formal claim should confirm the current category directly on iucnredlist.org. The real sourcing issue is not scarcity but legality: because supply comes from natural forest rather than plantation, a responsible buyer should insist on legal, documented-origin material from State Forest Department depots or their equivalent.

Uses

In India Matti is a workhorse structural and heavy sawn timber. It goes into house and building construction, beams and framing, tool and implement handles, and — treated — railway sleepers and other wet or “underwater” work.³² It is also used for furniture, cabinetwork, joinery, panelling, flooring and boat-building, and it makes excellent fuelwood and charcoal.²¹ Where it turns decorative it does so as sliced veneer, especially quarter-sawn, which brings out an attractive figure; it is reported suitable for plywood and lamination too.³² But it is worth being clear that Matti's mainstream forms are sawn timber and sliced veneer, not rotary-peeled plywood core — for core, lighter and easier-peeling species dominate.

For the packing trade specifically, Matti's density, hardness and strength make it a heavy-duty option: crate and case framing, skids, and pallet bearers, runners and gluts under heavy or engineering goods.¹⁴ It is a strength packing wood, not a light one. Two caveats follow straight from its own data sheet — it weighs a container down quickly, and it needs pre-boring to nail — which is exactly why lighter, cheaper species are usually chosen for ordinary retail packing and Matti is reserved for the loads that genuinely need it.

How Cochin Wood uses Matti (Indian laurel)

We are a Kerala plywood and timber manufacturer, and our group has worked the local timber and plywood trade since 1986. Matti is not one of our headline plywood faces — for that we lean on peeler species — but it has an honest place in our sawn-timber and heavy-packing supply where a customer needs strength rather than lightness. Where a brief calls for load-bearing frames, skids or bearers under heavy machinery, dense hardwood members like Matti earn their keep; for that kind of work see our heavy plywood boxes and crates and plywood pallets. Because Matti is a natural-forest timber that seasons stubbornly and needs treating for damp service, we qualify every enquiry on grade, thickness, moisture and destination before we quote — and where a lighter or cheaper species would do the same job, we will say so. Browse the wider range on our product catalogue, or compare species in the woods we use.