Briar: what is it?
It's safe to say that briar is a truly mysterious material... but you'll soon find out why!
Erica arborea, also simply called Erica, is a member of the large family Ericacee, which has about 1350 species spread all over the world.
It appears as a shrub, which can reach a maximum height of 2 meters.
Its special feature is that underneath it, just below the ground, a special swelling forms, called burl and which is precisely the raw material of the tobacco pipe.
This burl, on the surface, has nothing special about it.
Erica arborea, then, is distinguished from Erica scoparia, which is its female counterpart.
Those who dig the briar burls from the earth, use this distinction to indicate the different qualities of burl that the two species have.
The male species offers larger, more compact and intensely colored burls, and is the only type used to make tobacco pipes.
But what makes this plant mysterious?
The mystery lies in how and why the briar burl is formed underground, that special bulge from which tobacco pipes are made.
According to botanists, it is a consequence of pathological factors due to different kinds of trauma.
It would then be an excretion that gives rise to a woody mass. This phenomenon is common to other trees, but it seems that Erica arborea has a certain predisposition.
Traumatic injuries that originate the briar burl can occur anywhere in the root system and, precisely by virtue of their randomness, can create well-united and conformed but also bumps and unusable ones.
Foreign matters are almost always present in the briar burls, such as stones and soil, testifying to the traumatic origin of the bump. Other times, insect bites or galleries are visible.
But what does the briar burl look like?
The largest ones reach 50 kilograms in weight and half a meter in diameter, but today it is increasingly rare to find them of this size.
The outer layer is thin, rough and brittle, with a color ranging from red-brown to black, while the wood is yellowish to grayish in color.
Why is briar used for pipes?
The shape and anatomical structure of the briar burl make it suitable for pipe making.
In fact, woods such as cherry, boxwood, ebony or rosewood, which were once used to make tobacco pipes, have proven over time to be inferior to briar in strength and firmness.
This is due to the fact that the fibers of briar are almost "bound" together due to the particular conformation of the swelling that develops below the plant.
In fact, in the case of timbers made from stems, the linear arrangement of the fibers makes them less fire resistant and less compact.
This is due to the fact that the fibers of the briar are almost "bound" together due to the particular conformation of the swelling that develops below the plant.
Briar burls also owes its remarkable non-combustibility to the high presence of silicon dioxide.
Not surprisingly, briar has always been used as firewood because of its great durability and calorific value, and it also makes excellent quality charcoal.
Where do briar trees grow?
Erica arborea grows wild in several countries, such as Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Albania, Corsica and Algeria, in fact we are talking about a typical Mediterranean scrub plant.
It grows on various soils and the ideal climate is coastal, with an altitude between 700 and 800 meters.
Italian briar is very popular and appreciated all over the world, and the areas of greatest production are Calabria, Tuscany, Sardinia, Liguria and Sicily.
Many years ago, Italy was the world's leading exporter of briar, trading 50,000 bales a year.
However, it must be said that the idea of using briar to make tobacco pipes is thanks to the French.
There is a story about how a smoker traveling to Corsica, having lost his meerschaum pipe, asked a local farmer to get him a tobacco pipe.
The farmer made one using just the briar. The smoker found it excellent and decided to take pieces of it back home.
A few years later, that is, in the middle of the 19th century, the town of Saint Claude became the capital of briar pipes, that is, the modern tobacco pipe, which replaced the meerschaum pipe for good.
How is briar burl extracted?
In the areas where briar develops there is little rain and a lot of wind, in fact the shrub always shows up with small foliage and stunted branches.
It is precisely for this reason that the plant tends to concentrate its energies underground, developing roots and pebble.
The properties of the burl, namely firmness and hardness, are the result of this plant's continuous struggle for survival.
The older the briar burl, the coarser, more compact it will be and thus more suitable for tobacco pipe making.
At one time, lumberjacks neglected young ones, perhaps with ages under 15 years.
Today the situation has reversed, in fact no one asks about the age of the briar burls anymore because of the scarcity.
Old briar burls, many decades old, have now become a rarity.
When it comes to the extraction itself, the lumberjack carefully excavates the burl, avoiding damaging it. Then, using an hatchet, he frees the briar burl from foreign bodies.
Once extracted, in order to prevent the wood from drying out or splitting, it is important that it "dies slowly," remaining fresh to the last.
For this reason, it is covered with branches or moist soil before transport.