Without doubt, the balsa wood is made from the balsa trees. As a fan of handicraft, you may ba familiar with thebalsa wood and you can make the wood into models in a few hours. But do you know about the balsa tree? Do you want to know where and how do the balsa tree grow? Do you want to know when it the best time to cut down the tree and use it to produce your favourite balsa wood?

The balsa trees are a type of tropical trees. Just like other types of tropical trees, they grow fast and have no annual growth rings. If they are provided with plenty of sunlight and water, they could grow more than 5 meters per year. The maximum height they could grow is about 30 meters which means it will cost them about 5 years to get such height. 

The balsa tree begins to flower at three years of age and their leaves are so large that they could accept enough sunlight for its growth. Generally, the ends of the branches are the areas where the leaves concentrated. And the shape of the leaves are similar with the leaves of phoenix tree which are pointed at the top and heart-shaped at the bottom.
 

The best time to harvest the balsa tree is at the three years age. If the balsa tree is not used to produce wood at this age, it will become useless. As we all know, the strength and the light weight is the determining factor for its wide uses. However, when the balsa tree becomes too old, it will absorb too much water and the density of the wood will become too heavy to make models.