the.com/sandalwood
a tree so precious it gets poached, smuggled, and guarded like cocaine of the forest.
means A fragrant, heavy yellowish wood from trees of the genus Santalum, prized for its scent and oils in perfumes, incense, and carving.
from The scent travels through languages like the oil itself. English took 'sandal' from Medieval Latin 'sandalum', which came through Greek and Arabic from Sanskrit 'candana', the Indian word for the fragrant tree. The 'wood' was simply tacked on in English to make plain what kind of thing we meant — so 'sandalwood' is, etymologically, 'fragrant-tree-wood.' (No relation to the shoe: that 'sandal' is a separate Greek word, 'sandalon'.)
- Slow grower
- Takes 15 years before heartwood is worth harvesting.
- Parasite roots
- It steals nutrients from neighboring plants to survive.
- Smuggling target
- Indian red sandalwood fetches thousands per kilogram illegally.
- Scent in heartwood
- The fragrance lives only in the tree's core, not bark.
- Ritual fuel
- Burned in temples and funeral pyres for millennia.
mysore sandalwood — endangered indian variety from karnataka, supplies 90% of global sandalwood oil production
hawaiian sandalwood — nearly extinct species from hawaii islands, historically devastated by overexploitation in 1800s
australian sandalwood — santalum spicatum species from western australia, commercially harvested since 1920s