Colophospermum mopane (recently it has been proposed to rename it Hardwickia mopane) of the family Leguminosae (subfamily Caesalpinioideae), the legume or pea family
From southern Africa
My thanks to Paul van Rijckevorsel for this summary
my samples:
both sides of a sample plank of mopane / Colophospermum mopane
end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above
web pics
turning sticks --- in the 2nd pic, the 2nd stick looks curly but that's an artifact of the digital image handling and goes away on the enlargement. You see this a lot with zebrawood, and less often with other woods such as this.
planks --- the first five, and probably the sixth as well, are from the BogusColorVendor, so I do not trust the red color at all.
