Anjili (Wild Jack) Wood (Artocarpus hirsutus): Properties, Density & Uses

What Anjili is

Anjili (Artocarpus hirsutus) is a large evergreen hardwood of the Moraceae family — the same genus, Artocarpus, that gives us jackfruit and breadfruit.1 The tree is in fact a wild relative of the jackfruit, which is why English-speaking traders call it Wild Jack or Jungle Jack. Across its home range it answers to many names: Anjili or Ayani in Malayalam, Aini in the trade, Hebbalasu in Kannada, and anjani in parts of India.24 Botanists also record the synonym Artocarpus pubescens.3

The heartwood is a golden-yellow to yellowish-brown, lustrous when freshly sawn and darkening gradually on exposure; the sapwood is a paler greyish or yellowish-white.23 On the west coast of India, Anjili has long been treated as a working substitute for teak — used, as one Kerala reference puts it, "for all purposes for which teak is employed."5

Where it grows

Anjili is endemic to the Western Ghats of peninsular India — the belt of evergreen and moist-deciduous forest running down the west coast from south Maharashtra and Goa through Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu to Kanyakumari (Wikipedia also notes stands in western Sri Lanka).14 It grows from near sea level up into the hills; sources give the upper limit variously as about 1,000 m (Wikipedia) or up to roughly 1,300 m (Useful Tropical Plants), in a high-rainfall zone.13

Importantly for buyers, this is not a large industrial plantation timber. Most commercial Anjili comes from natural regeneration in the Ghats together with the very extensive planting and retention of the tree in Kerala and coastal-Karnataka homegardens and homesteads, where it doubles as a shade and fruit tree.35 It flowers around December to March and the fruit ripens in May–June.4

The tree is large. ITTO records mature specimens of 25–45 m tall with a clean bole of 10–20 m and a diameter of 130–150 cm; Wikipedia gives a more conservative figure of up to about 35 m.21 Height and girth clearly vary by source and site, but either way the tree yields long, straight logs.

Density and hardness

Anjili's headline number is its density: the ITTO reference figure is 0.60 g/cm³, or about 600 kg/m³, measured air-dry at 12% moisture.2 Broader species surveys quote a range of roughly 500–700 kg/m³, which brackets that figure and reflects natural variation. Either way it sits right in the teak band (teak is about 630–655 kg/m³) — which is why sources describe Anjili again and again as "almost as strong as teak, with the advantage of being lighter."15

The strength tests bear that reputation out. At 12% moisture, ITTO reports a modulus of rupture (bending strength) of about 95 MPa, a modulus of elasticity (stiffness) near 12 GPa, and compression parallel to the grain of around 60 MPa.2 Those are solid, teak-class hardwood values.

One number we deliberately will not give you is a Janka hardness figure. None of the forestry sources we could reach publishes a species-specific Janka value for Artocarpus hirsutus. The wood is described qualitatively as "moderately hard," and its specific gravity of about 0.60 places it in the same moderately-hard band as teak — but we would rather flag the gap than quote a hardness number we cannot stand behind.3

Workability and seasoning

Anjili works well. ITTO notes it is easy to saw and machine, particularly when green, and that it finishes to a smooth surface and takes a lasting, high polish.2 Its long record in nailed and jointed work — packing cases, cooperage, truck bodies and flooring, boat building — shows that it also holds fastenings dependably. For panel products, ITTO explicitly lists plywood and veneer, both faces and cores, among its established uses, so the timber peels and slices acceptably.2

On seasoning, the shrinkage figures are encouraging. ITTO gives total shrinkage from green to oven-dry as 5.3% tangential and 3.4% radial — a tangential-to-radial ratio of about 1.6.2 A ratio that low points to relatively little distortion in drying, meaning the timber seasons fairly well with limited warping and checking. It is also renowned for lasting well even when wet, a trait we return to below. We were not able to obtain a detailed kiln schedule from the sources reached, so we describe the drying behaviour qualitatively rather than prescribing a programme.

Durability and treatability

Durability is Anjili's real commercial strength. ITTO rates its natural durability at index 1 — the top of the 1-to-7 scale, that is, very high.2 That rating is backed up independently: the timber is repeatedly described as durable, lasting well in water and damp conditions and resistant to white ants and other termites.13 This is precisely why it was chosen historically for Kerala's snake boats and for structural woodwork in old buildings, and why it substitutes so readily for teak in exposed service.

Treatability — how readily the wood takes preservative — is less well documented, and we will not overstate it. The sources we reached do not give a preservative-uptake class for A. hirsutus. As a general rule, durable Moraceae heartwoods tend to be refractory (hard to impregnate) while the sapwood is more permeable, so that is the reasonable expectation here — but treat it as expectation, not a verified figure for this species. In practice the point is somewhat academic: a timber this naturally durable rarely needs heavy preservative treatment for ordinary use.

Sustainability and sourcing

On paper the conservation picture is comfortable. Anjili is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessed 2018), and the species carries no CITES restriction — ITTO records its trade status as unrestricted.12 Because most commercial supply comes from homegardens, homesteads and managed natural regeneration rather than from protected forest, the availability question is more about local sourcing and permits than about a species-level trade ban.

That said, Anjili is a Western Ghats endemic, and responsible buying means the paperwork has to be right. Legality here hinges on state forest transit permits and proof of legal origin rather than on any international listing.3 We source against that documentation and recommend any buyer do the same.

What Anjili is used for

The published end-use list for Anjili is long: exterior joinery and poles; house construction (beams and boards); furniture and cabinetwork; plywood and veneer faces and cores; door cores; sports goods; tool handles; musical instruments; and — the part that matters most to us — light packing, containers, cooperage, and truck bodies and flooring.2 On the heritage side, Anjili built Kerala's ceilings, door and window frames and furniture, was hewn into the great chundan vallam snake boats, and supplied some 140 tonnes of timber for Tim Severin's reconstructed ship Sohar on its 1980–81 Muscat-to-Canton voyage.15

For packing specifically, Anjili is close to an ideal case timber. It brings teak-class strength (around 95 MPa in bending) at a lighter weight than teak, it holds nails and screws well, and it is naturally durable and water-resistant.21 That combination means cases and crates built from it survive rough handling, outdoor staging and the moisture of a long transit — while as a sawn runner or scantling it makes strong, dependable framing for crating heavy engineering goods.

How Cochin Wood uses Anjili (Wild Jack)

We are a Kerala manufacturer, and Anjili is a home-ground timber for us — a species we know from the homegardens and yards around Perumbavoor and Ernakulam rather than from an import manifest. Where it fits, Anjili appears in our supply in two ways: as sawn timber — runners, scantlings and framing for heavy-duty crates — and, where the log quality suits it, as a hardwood core or face veneer in panel work.

Its natural strengths line up neatly with what a packing customer needs: strength and durability for cases that must take a beating, plus water resistance for goods that ship or sit outdoors. If you are building wooden packing cases and crates or pallets for engineering exports, Anjili sawn timber is worth asking about; for panel requirements we can advise where an Anjili-class hardwood core makes sense against our standard commercial plywood and block board and flush doors. See our sawn timber range, or the full products catalogue, for what we currently hold.

Because Anjili comes largely from homegardens and the Western Ghats, availability and size vary through the year — so the honest answer to most enquiries is: tell us the sizes and quantities you need, and we will tell you what we can source and when.