Chile Forum

The different trees in Chile are amazing. And we've found some stunningly beautiful wood in downed trees on our property. Most interesting to me is that I find downed trees where the outside is rotted - like four or five inches in, yet the inside contains a core of iron-like wood. Exactly the opposite of what we saw in Panama, or even when I lived on a farm in Ohio. Yet these trees are down, not sawed off and they have no internal rot. We made our cabin out of some of it, and it is beautiful, hard dense wood. I find that odd, but then I really don't know anything about actual trees, or forestry. Anyone have an idea?

Vicki

Probably you are refering to "cipres de guaytecas", my father owns the monopoly to exploit those wood during the 50s-60s they are very old trees in process of fossilization, it was widely used in railroad tracks and ligth post before concrete post appeared, it was also used for vineyards and, despite the rotten syrface are solid as steel inside, the motto of my father company (Sociedad Explotadora de Ciprés de Guaytecas) was "No se pudre, No se apolilla, Dura 100 años"

Wow Tom, thanks for the info. It is amazing how hard the center of these logs are. The outside can almost be flaked off with bare hands, yet you can hardly get a chainsaw through the center.

Vicki

I am not sure about Futa directly, but there is a lot of alerce just north, mostly around Pumalin. The stuff is likely as durable as plastic or at least treated lumber. It takes one of them a 1,000 years to die, and another 1,000 to start rotting. The stuff last forever. It has very nice red hue to it.

There are very serious restrictions however on using Alerce. Cutting it is out of the question. I am trying to find out if it is legal to sell it, if it was cut prior to the restriction being imposed. I would love to build a house out of it.

I am still not clear on the name/s of the tree that is aromatic, almost like sandlewood. I was told that it was from the sacred Mapuche tree. I'm confused, which is as natural as my rose-colored corneas...But if anyone has some great tree identification sites they know of, I would so appreciate it. Petunio has some great stuff on his blog, so I know what a Tunio tree is (and thankfully have lots on my property). What I am specifically talking about is...I bought a little bag of splintered sticks from a Mapuche vendor in Santiago- I thought they said it was Paulo Santo. The wood smells lovely when lit, like incense. And then, when we built our little rustic cabin and dragged and cut up downed wood for the fire, once in a while I would smell that fragrance again. But I can't identify the wood, or the tree.

Vicki