Thought I would resurrect this thread, as I'm currently using "Malaysian blackwood" in a build. It will certainly make a pretty guitar once it's finished.
Like the originator of this thread, I wondered "what is this stuff ... really??". My "other profession" is as a forest geneticist, so looking up this sort of stuff is old hat. Malaysian blackwood is described on luthier wood sites as "Diospyros ebonasea". I hate to break the news, but I'm quite sure that this very scientific-sounding name is a figment of some wood dealer's imagination. Diospyros is a genus which includes all "true" ebonies in the Ebenaceae/Ebonaceae (ebony and persimmon) family (the first spelling is now preferred, but both are in use). The species name given to what is marketed as Malaysian blackwood is a misspelled version of the family name, and no doubt was originally simply to indicate "a true ebony from Malaysia". Unfortunately, there are 400-500 species of Diospyros, and many of them are in Indo-Malaya!
"Diospyros ebonasae" is not on any recognised taxonomic listing -- if you google it (or the common name "Malaysian blackwood"), the only hits you'll get are related to lutherie. Given my "other" profession, I like to give my buyers an accurate description of what their instrument is made from. In this case, I'll have to leave it at "some ebony from Malaysia, Diospyros spp., that luthier's romantically refer to as Malaysian blackwood".
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Its the difference between what some suppliers and builders call Malaysian blackwood and Malaysian ebony thats intreging, as i have seen suppliers distinguish betwen the two (although Malaysian ebony is often just referred to as 'Diospyros spp' with Malaysian blackwood as Diospyros ebonasea) but on several high end luthier sites and other suppliers they do not distinguish betwee the ... just wondered if there was a difference or not?