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
Hardness allows a known pressure to be applied without the need for complicated machinery. Indentation hardness measures the resistance of a sample to material deformation due to a constant compression load from a sharp object. Tests for indentation hardness are primarily used in engineering and metallurgy fields. The tests work on the basic premise of measuring the critical dimensions of an indentation left by a specifically dimensioned and loaded indenter. Common indentation hardness scales are Rockwell, Vickers, Shore, and Brinell, amongst others. Rebound hardness, also known as "dynamic hardness", measures the height of the "bounce" of a diamond-tipped hammer dropped from