Pala (White Cheesewood) Wood (Alstonia scholaris): Properties, Density & Uses

What Pala (white cheesewood) is

Pala is the timber of Alstonia scholaris, a member of the Apocynaceae — the oleander and frangipani family.136 Although it is botanically a hardwood, it is anything but heavy: the wood is light, soft and low in density, which is precisely why it has earned a steady place in the packing and match trades rather than in furniture or structural work.

The species carries an unusually long list of names, which matters when you are matching a supplier's stock to what you actually want. In English-language timber circles it is white cheesewood, blackboard tree, scholar tree, devil's tree, milkwood or milky pine, and across South-East Asia the same genus trades as “Pulai”.123 Here in Kerala it is best known as Ezhilampala (്ലിലമതാലാ), Pala or Yakshippala, the “yaksha tree”; in Sanskrit it is Saptaparna, and in the North-Indian timber trade the common name is Chatian (also Satwin or Saptaparni).614 Different mills and depots will invoice the same wood under any of these labels.

Where it grows

The natural range is wide, running from Pakistan and the Indian subcontinent east through southern China, Myanmar, Thailand, Indochina, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, and south to northern Australia and the Solomon Islands.13 Within India it is found throughout the moist regions and is common in the west-coast forests of the Western Ghats, and it is the state tree of West Bengal.1

In Kerala the tree is a familiar sight: it grows in the state's sacred groves and is very widely planted as a fast-growing roadside and avenue ornamental.3 That everyday presence tells you something important about supply. Pala is not a managed commercial timber plantation crop. It comes mainly from natural forest, farm and avenue trees, and cleared groves; being fast-growing and quick to coppice, it recurs as an ornamental and a low-value utility timber rather than a scheduled sawlog.3 For a buyer this means availability is opportunistic and local rather than contract-grade, and lots can vary batch to batch.

Weight, density and hardness

Pala's defining trait is how light it is, and the published numbers reflect the natural spread you would expect from a wood drawn across many origins. The Wood Database lists it at about 410 kg/m³ air-dry, with a specific gravity of 0.37–0.41.2 Trade data for the wider Alstonia/Pulai group put the air-dry range much broader at 210–500 kg/m³, classing it plainly as a “light hardwood”,5 and an Indian durability review records 270–490 kg/m³ at 15% moisture.7 Taken together, a sensible working figure is around 370–410 kg/m³, with the full published spread running from roughly 210 to 500. Either way, this is a genuinely light, low-density wood — the property that makes it a packing and match timber in the first place.

Hardness and strength follow from that low density, and here it is worth being candid about the data. The one widely-quoted Janka figure is 420 lbf (1,860 N) — a low, soft rating consistent with a match-splint and light-box wood — but it is a single published value, so treat it as indicative rather than firmly cross-checked.2 On bending strength the sources bracket a range: modulus of rupture of about 43–55 MPa and elastic modulus of roughly 7.1–8.4 GPa, with compression parallel to the grain near 25–29 MPa, the lower figures coming from a sister Pulai species.25 These are moderate-to-low; in plain terms, package goods with it, but do not build a load-bearing structure from it.

Working, nailing and seasoning

Where Pala earns its keep is at the workbench. It is very easy to work overall — it saws, planes, bores and turns cleanly.53 Two properties matter most for our trade. First, its nailing is rated excellent: it holds nails without pre-boring and with little splitting, which is exactly what you want for fast crate and box assembly.5 Second, it peels easily, making it suitable for rotary-peeled veneer and plywood corestock.43 It also glues and finishes well.2 The main caveats are that, being soft, end-grain and cross sections need a genuinely sharp tool for a clean finish, and it steam-bends poorly.32

Seasoning is quick and generally trouble-free. Malaysian air-drying data give roughly 1.5 months for 13 mm boards and 2.5 months for 38 mm, and a kiln schedule takes 25 mm stock from 50% down to 10% moisture in about five days.5 The one drying defect that must be managed is blue (sap) stain: the pale wood is very liable to it, so it has to be sawn and dried quickly after felling, or dip-treated at the mill, to keep its colour.35 Shrinkage figures diverge by source — one gives radial 3.6% / tangential 6.0% / volumetric 9.8%, another puts radial and tangential much lower at 2.3% and 2.8% — but on either reading the wood is moderate and reasonably stable once in service.25

Durability and treatment

This is the property to plan around. Left untreated, Pala is perishable / non-durable: in Malaysian graveyard tests all specimens were destroyed within about six months, and under Indian conditions it is placed in Durability Class III.257 It is susceptible to fungal decay and blue-stain, and the sapwood in particular is highly prone to powder-post (lyctid) and pinhole borers, as well as termites.32

The redeeming feature is treatability. Pala takes preservative readily — it has good uptake — so dip- or pressure-treated stock resists decay and insects markedly better and is what gets used for higher-grade applications, including treated plywood.54 The practical takeaway is simple: Pala is fine for single-trip or short-life packaging as it is, but for any longer service life, humid transit, or storage beyond a few weeks it should be preservative-treated and kept dry and well ventilated.

Sustainability and sourcing

From a legality and scarcity point of view, Pala is low-risk. It is assessed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List and is not CITES-listed.12 Because it is not a plantation monoculture but a fast-growing, freely-coppicing tree drawn from natural forest, farmland, roadsides and cleared groves, ordinary supply does not carry the endangered-species baggage that some tropical hardwoods do.3 The flip side of that informal supply chain is consistency, not conservation: because lots are gathered rather than farmed, the sensible discipline is to confirm freshness and colour (to catch blue stain) and to specify treatment where the end use demands it.

What Pala is used for

Pala's traditional uses read like a catalogue of light, high-volume, cost-sensitive products. In India it goes into packing cases and boxes, including tea chests and tea packing, along with writing and “lamina” boards.4 It is a classic match wood — good enough for both match boxes and match splints.45 In plywood it is accepted as suitable for third-class commercial plywood after the necessary preservative treatment, and because it peels easily it is used as plywood corestock.43 Beyond those, it turns up in second-grade pencils and pulp for paper,4 and in pattern-making, light carving and mouldings, light construction, toys, toothpicks, disposable chopsticks, picture frames, coffins, and — the origin of the “blackboard tree” name — school blackboards.531 It is a utility and core-grade timber, chosen for lightness, workability and price rather than for looks or strength.

How Cochin Wood uses Pala (White Cheesewood)

We are a Kerala plywood and timber manufacturer, and Pala is one of the light, locally-available utility woods that can appear in our sawn packing timber and core-veneer supply as availability allows — not as a headline species, but as an honest working input. Its two commercial arguments are lightness and nailing: a case skinned or framed in a light wood carries less dead weight, and stock that holds nails without splitting speeds up crate and box assembly. That makes it a reasonable fit for light-to-medium, largely single-trip plywood boxes and crates and for box and pallet components, as well as for sawn packing timber.

As a wood that peels cleanly, Pala can also serve as corestock in commercial plywood after treatment — the same core role it plays in the wider Indian ply trade — feeding into our commercial plywood and, where a light core is wanted, block board and flush doors. We are straight about its limits: it is soft, perishable when untreated and prone to blue stain, so we treat and specify it accordingly and steer heavy, reusable or long-haul crating towards denser, tougher woods. If Pala or a specific packing-grade suits your job, we will say so; if it does not, we will point you to the right wood instead. Browse the full product catalogue or the woods we use to compare.