Ekki (Lophira alata), also sold as azobé or bongossi, is a West African heavyweight—one of the densest commercial timbers you’ll routinely encounter. The wood is engineered by nature for punishment: extreme strength, exceptional wear resistance, and durability that holds up in wet, abrasive, marine environments.
Visually it’s typically red-brown to very dark brown, often with pale mineral deposits in the pores that can give a speckled look on clean faces. That same density is what makes it so hard on tools: cutters dull quickly, pre-boring is essential, and drying needs discipline because checking and end-splitting are common if it’s rushed.
Ekki isn’t a furniture timber—it’s a specification timber. If you see it, it’s usually doing a job where failure is expensive: piling, lock gates, jetties, bridge timbers, heavy decking and high-abuse structural components where you want maximum service life rather than easy workability.