Laburnum musical instruments. In addition to such wind instruments as recorders and flutes, it was a popular wood for Great Highland Bagpipes before taste turned to imported dense tropical hardwoods such as "Brya ebenus" (cocus wood), ebony, and "Dalbergia melanoxylon" (African monkeywood). The heart-wood of a laburnum may be used as a substitute for ebony or rosewood. It is very hard and a dark chocolate brown, with a butter-yellow sapwood. "Laburnum" species and hybrids are cultivated as ornamental trees for gardens and parks. They are also trained as espaliers on pergolas, for ceilings of pendant flowers in season. In its natural
HMS Laburnum (1915) 1946, and sunk off East Lagoon, Singapore, as part of an existing breakwater of old hulks, and finally removed and scrapped about 1967. HMS Laburnum (1915) HMS "Laburnum" was a Royal Navy sloop built by Charles Connell and Company, Scotstoun. She was scuttled during the fall of Singapore in 1942. She was laid down at the Scotstoun yard of Charles Connell and Company in February 1915, launched on 10 June 1915 and completed in August 1915. The "Acacia"-class fleet sweeping sloops were adapted for escort work, minesweeping and as decoy warships. "Laburnum" joined the First Sloop Flotilla on commissioning. On