Bwa-yo - Société Audubon Haiti

122 Lisina ... Delen
Figure 15.4 The high wood yield ofL. leucocephala ssp. glabrata yields a charcoal that
competes well with native species.
ops into a multi-stemmed tree in regions of severe winter drought extending beyond 4
months or under free-grazing conditions. The flowering of subspecies glabrala is more
seasonal than that of subspecies leucocephala, with peak fruiting occurring from
February through March and October through November. There are 17,000-20,000
seed kg l . Both subspecies are tetraploid (Brewbaker, 1987).
The light yellowish sapwood is distinguished from the brown heartwood. The grain
tends to be interlocked and rough. Wood density of subspecies glabrala is affected by
growing conditions. Differences have been detected in Haiti across sites for the same
provenance and stand age. The average specific gravity ofwood from a 5-year-old stand
in the Northwest was 0.68 as compared to 0.61 for trees growing in the Southwest.
Typical specific gravity ranges in Haiti are between 0.59 and 0.79. These ranges are significantly
lower than those ofL. shannonii (0.83-0.93) and L. collinsii (0.80-0.96) that
also have been tested in Haiti.
Utilization: The wide adaptability and fast growth of the tree make it a convenient
species to plant for fodder, poles, fuelwood and charcoal. However, short rotation (2-3
year) poles are not durable, being highly susceptible to wood borers and are used only
incases in which durability is not important. The advantage of higher wood production
is best achieved by transforming to charcoal (Fig. 15.4), which is considered to be of
moderate quality, but inferior to the traditional Prosopis and Acacia charcoals and the
exotic Casuarina equisetifolia (Grosenick, 1986a).
The utilization of subspecies glabrata in hedgerows probably has surpassed its
importance as a single stemmed tree since the mid- I980s when USAID-funded agro-