[f. CORK sb.1 + WOOD.]
† 1. Cork in the mass. Obs.
1769. Priestley, in Phil. Trans., LIX. 63. The black side of a piece of cork-wood.
2. A name given in various parts of the world to various light and porous woods, and the trees yielding them; e.g., in the West Indies to Anona palustris, Ochroma Lagopus, Hibiscus (Paritium tiliaceum); in N.S. Wales to Duboisia myoporoides.
1756. P. Browne, Jamaica, 256. The Alligator Apple Tree or Cork-wood…. The wood of this tree is so soft, even after it is dried, that it is frequently used … instead of corks.
1866. Treas. Bot., 800. Ochroma, the well-known Corkwood tree … is very common in the West Indies and Central America, where its soft spongy and exceedingly light wood, called Corkwood in Jamaica, is commonly employed as a substitute for cork.
1882. J. Smith, Dict. Plants, 133.
3. A name of the White Cork Boletus (Polyporus niveus, formerly Boletus suberosus), which grows on the trunks of trees.
So commonly called in the South of Scotland.
