bosse

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BOSSE

Guarea spp.
Guarea spp. of the family Meliaceae, the mahogany family. The primary species appear to be Guarea cedrata and G. thompsonii but there a dozen more (see discussion below)

A mahogany-related wood from both Africa and South America. Several South American species of the genus Guarea and several African species are sold under the common names guarea and bosse and I do not know the differences, if any, among them. All together, there are easily a dozen species in the genus Guarea that are sold as either bosse or guarea OR BOTH --- primary dealers certainly know whether their wood comes from South America or Africa, but secondary dealers may be less sure and may not even care, so I consider the separation of the Guarea species into guarea and Bosse to be suspect as far as common availability goes. I certainly have no faith that the separation between the two on this web site is entirely accurate, although I DO pay attention to where I get the pics and what they say (but this relies on the knowledge of the vendors and that ranges from what I believe to be quite reliable, to highly suspect).

my samples:
NOTE: these pics were all taken in very bright incandescent lighting ("soft white" at 2700K)
colors will vary under other lighting conditions

The plank directly below (from which the left pic here was cropped) was out in my garage for many years and when I cut it recently to sell a chunk, I noticed that it had darkened considerably. The color now is shown in the right pic.

both sides of a sample plank of bosse (guarea) / Guarea spp. --- HUGE enlargements are present.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of bosse / Guarea spp. --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was contributed to the site by Mark Peet whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site. The first side is freshly sanded but the second side is as it came from the lumber yard.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

a small plank sold to me as guarea

one side and end grain of a small turning stick sold to me as guarea

end grain closeup and END GRAIN UPDATE of the piece directly above. When I sanded for the update, one side got done properly and the other didn't so I rotated the piece for the pic so that everything shown is good clear fine grain detail.