[Native Hawaiian name.] A valuable forest-tree of the Sandwich Islands, a species of Acacia, yielding a beautiful dark wood which is used in building and cabinet-work; the bark is employed in tanning. Also attrib.
1850. Scoresby, Cheever’s Whaleman’s Adv., ii. (1859), 19. Overgrown with huge roots of the Kamani and Koa trees.
1860. Merc. Marine Mag., VII. 270. Coffins, cheifly made of Koa, a kind of Hawaiian mahogany.
1887. Science, X. 2 Sept., 115/2. The remarkable boards of koa-wood, shaped like an ironing board, standing on which they rode through the surf.
