The term harewood or airwood originally described a type of

maple ''Acer'' () is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated since http ...

wood, including

sycamore maple ''Acer pseudoplatanus'', known as the sycamore in the British Isles and as the sycamore maple in the United States, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is a large deciduous, broad-leaved tree, tol ...

, with a curled or "fiddleback" figure, used to make the backs of

stringed instruments String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the st ...

. In 17th-century England it was imported from Germany. The earliest published use of the term is probably that in the 1670 edition of '' Sylva'': In the 18th century airwood came to be used by marqueteurs; for most

artificial colours Food coloring, or color additive, is any dye, pigment, or substance that imparts color when it is added to food or drink. They come in many forms consisting of liquids, powders, gels, and pastes. Food coloring is used in both commercial food p ...

they used

holly ''Ilex'' (), or holly, is a genus of over 570 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. ''Ilex'' has the most species of any woody dioecious angiosperm genus. The species are evergreen o ...

, which takes

vegetable dye Natural dyes are dyes or colorants derived from plants, invertebrates, or minerals. The majority of natural dyes are vegetable dyes from plant sources—roots, berries, bark, leaves, and wood—and other biological sources such as fungi. Archaeolo ...

s very well, but airwood was employed either in its natural off-white state or stained with

iron sulphate Iron sulfate may refer to: * Ferrous sulfate, Iron(II) sulfate, FeSO4 * Ferric sulfate, Iron(III) sulfate Iron(III) sulfate (or ferric sulfate), is a family of inorganic compounds with the formula Fe2(SO4)3(H2O)n. A variety of hydrates are known, ...

to produce a range of

silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

and silver-grey hues.Peter Weber, ''The Cabinet-Maker's Guide'', 2nd edn., London (1809), p. 9. The reason that airwood was preferred to holly for this colour was that it gave a

metallic Metallic may be a reference to: *Metal *Metalloid, metal-like substance *Metallic bonding, type of chemical bonding *Metallicity, in astronomy the proportion of elements other than helium and hydrogen in an object *Metallic color, a color that g ...

sheen or lustre, while holly dyed by the same process turned a rather dead

grey Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...

. The use of airwood in this way meant that by the 19th century it was associated specifically with that colour, and at the same time name gradually changed from airwood to harewood. In a relatively short space of time the action of the

chemicals A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wit ...

, together with natural oxidization, turns harewood brown, sometimes with a greyish or greenish hue, which is how the wood now appears on old marquetry. The notion that harewood and other coloured woods can be produced by injecting dyes into the roots of

trees In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are u ...

appears to be an old wives' tale of some antiquity, perhaps propagated by marqueteurs to protect their

trade secrets Trade secrets are a type of intellectual property that includes formulas, practices, processes, designs, instruments, patterns, or compilations of information that have inherent economic value because they are not generally known or readily as ...

References

{{Reflist Wood