Dalbergia is a large genus of small to medium-size trees, shrubs and lianas in the pea family, Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae. It was recently assigned to the informal monophyletic Dalbergia clade (or tribe): the Dalbergieae. The genus has a wide distribution, native to the tropical regions of Central and South America, Africa, Madagascar and Southern Asia.
Fossil record
A fossil †Dalbergia phleboptera seed pod has been found in a Chattian deposit, in the municipality of Aix-en-Provence in France. Fossils of †Dalbergia nostratum have been found in rhyodacite tuff of Lower Miocene age in Southern Slovakia near the town of Lučenec. Fossil seed pods of †Dalbergia mecsekense have been found in a Sarmatian deposit in Hungary. †Dalbergia lucida fossils have been described from the Xiaolongtan Formation of late Miocene age in Kaiyuan County, Yunnan Province, China.
Advances in Legume Systematics: Part 4, The Fossil Record, Ed. P.S. Herendeen & Dilcher, 1992, The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, ISBN 0 947643 40 0
Uses
Many species of Dalbergia are important timber trees, valued for their decorative and often fragrant wood, rich in aromatic oils. The most famous of these are the rosewoods, so-named because of the smell of the timber when cut, but several other valuable woods are yielded by the genus.
Species such as Dalbergia nigra known as Rio, Bahia, Brazilian rosewood, palisander de Rio Grande, or jacaranda and Dalbergia latifolia known as (East) Indian Rosewood or Sonokeling have been heavily used in furniture and musical instruments, given their colour and grain. Several East Asian species are important materials in traditional Chinese furniture.
The (Brazilian) tulipwood (D. decipularis) is cream coloured with red or salmon stripes. It is most often used in crossbanding and other veneers; it should not be confused with the "tulipwood" of the American tulip tree Liriodendron tulipifera, used in inexpensive cabinetwork.
