Renowned for its Figuring and Tone, Honduran Mahogany from The Tree Has Inspired Luthiers for Decades
One day last summer, I sat with a guitar case at my feet, awaiting a return flight from the Healdsburg Guitar Festival in Santa Rosa, California. An older gentleman seated next to me was eyeing the case with a look that suggested he wanted to talk about instruments. Upon making an introduction, he unzipped his overnight bag, rifled inside it for a moment, and retrieved an object whose identity was obscured by Saran Wrap. Looking around nervously, as if conducting an illicit transaction, he carefully peeled away a bit of the covering to reveal a luminous brown portion of wood with the most intricate wavy figuring. "This," he said, with a twinkle in his eyes, "is The Tree!"
As it happened, the gentleman was a seasoned woodworker new to guitar making. He'd gotten his hands on some singular quilted mahogany that for years has driven many woodworking and guitar enthusiasts to distraction. Unlike ordinary mahogany—the straight-grained and reddish-brown stuff—this timber is unique in its appearance, with heavy figuring that is thought to be the result of a genetic defect. Adding to its allure is the fact that this quilted mahogany, which has been used by Bedell/Breedlove, Lowden, Santa Cruz, R. Taylor, and other makers, is from a single tree—The Tree, as it has been dubbed—that has a long and fascinating story.
The legend of The Tree began almost 50 years ago, when a group of loggers deep in the Chiquibul Jungle of Honduras, now Belize, discovered a giant mahogany tree, 100 feet tall, with a 10-foot base and spiraled bark that gave a hint of its intense figuring. When the loggers felled the tree by ax, in 1965, things went terribly wrong. Against their expectations, it landed in a ravine, where it proved impossible to extricate even after being halved by a tractor.
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