West Indian satinwood (Zanthoxylum flavum) is also called Jamaican satinwood tree, San Domingo satinwood and is a tree that grows in the Caribbean and is only about 10 meters high and whose usual diameter of about 40-50 cm is rather small. Its light yellow, fine-pored, golden-yellow wood is all the more beautiful, showing a very interesting flamed or wavy grain on quarter-sawn surfaces that resembles the ripples of a silk fabric, giving it the name satinwood. The wood is also finely and evenly textured and has a very beautiful natural sheen. The wood produces a very pleasant lemony to coconut-like scent during processing. West Indian satinwood has been virtually unavailable in its natural growing area for a long time, as the stocks of this attractive wood could only be covered by radical deforestation during the 18th century due to the high appreciation and demand for light, golden shimmering furniture during the classical period. After these stocks in the Caribbean were cut down, a worldwide search was made for a substitute wood and finally the East India Company produced the East Indian satinwood (Chloroxylon swietenia), which is known everywhere today and has since been regarded as the only genuine satinwood, although this was only a substitute for the vanished West Indian wood.
