Rated as moderately easy to work for Decking, flooring, dock work, turnery, tool handles, railroad ties and joinery.

Handroanthus is a genus of flowering plants in the Bignoniaceae family that consists of 30 species of trees, known in Latin America by the common names of poui, pau d'arco, tajibo, lapacho or ipê. The latter sometimes appears as epay or simply ipe (unaccented) in English. The large timber species are sometimes called greenheart or guayacan, but these names are more properly applied to the species Handroanthus lapacho or Handroanthus guayacan respectively.

The name Handroanthus was established in 1970 but was not generally accepted. In 1992, its species were included in Tabebuia in the most recent revision of that genus. Handroanthus was resurrected in 2007 when a comparison of DNA sequences by cladistic showed that Tabebuia, as then circumscribed was not monophyletic.  It is a tree native to forests throughout Central and South America. The tree grows in the closed vegetation in Brazil, reaching up to French Guyana, Bolivia, Paraguay and Northern Argentina.

It is one of the largest and strongest of tropical forest trees, growing up to 150 feet (46 m) tall while the base can be 4–7 feet (1.2–2.1 m) in diameter.

It is a commercially farmed hardwood notable for its extreme hardness and resistance to fire and pests. It is sometimes traded as an “Ironwood”, or just as”Ipe” (the entire genus Tabebuia), or as lapacho or properly Handroanthus serratifolius . The bark of Handroanthus serratifolius contains chemical compounds including lapachol, quercetin, and other flavonoids.

Handroanthus are indigenous from Central America to northern Argentina, Paraguay and Chile, with one species, Handroanthus billbergii that is native to northern South America and the Antilles. Handroanthus are frequently cultivated far from their natural range, as ornamental trees, for their large and showy flowers. They easily become naturalized were introduced because their seeds are prolifically produced and widely scattered by the wind. Several species are important timber trees of the American tropics. Medicinal use has been reported, but its efficacy and side effects have not been well studied.