Lignum vitae wood can also be used to brew a tea. Other names for lignum vitae include palo santo (Spanish for "holy wood") Aura palo santo and "bastard greenheart" (not to be confused with true greenheart "Chlorocardium rodiei", a popular wood in shipbuilding, cabinetry, and woodturning but a completely different timber). Lignum vitae is also one of the numerous hard, dense woods loosely referred to as "ironwood". Lignum vitae is hard and durable, and is also the densest wood traded (density: 1.23 g/cm); it will easily sink in water. On the Janka Scale of Hardness, which measures hardness of woods, lignum vitae
Mohs scale of mineral hardness incorporates additional substances that may fall between levels: Comparison between hardness (Mohs) and hardness (Vickers): Mohs scale of mineral hardness The Mohs scale of mineral hardness is a qualitative ordinal scale characterizing scratch resistance of various minerals through the ability of harder material to scratch softer material. Created in 1812 by German geologist and mineralogist Friedrich Mohs, it is one of several definitions of hardness in materials science, some of which are more quantitative. The method of comparing hardness by seeing which minerals can visibly scratch others is, however, of great antiquity, having been mentioned by Theophrastus in his treatise