Black Palmyra Traditional Tree

Traditional-style trees in black palmyra, each with a turned trunk and pot. They’re around 13cm tall and just under 5cm across at the widest, and the speckled pattern is fascinating.

This was a happy accident. I thought I’d bought a zebrano spindle blank online, but I’d clicked on something else, and as it turns out I’m really glad I did.

Black palmyra comes from the palmyra palm, and strictly speaking a palm isn’t wood at all. Palms don’t form growth rings like trees do. Instead, the trunk is a mass of tough, dark fibre bundles set in softer, paler tissue, and it’s those fibres, cut across, that give the surface its distinctive speckle.

Finished with chestnut friction polish, which brought a wonderful shine to this wood.