The August Wood

Attributes

August wood looks similar to birch, the trunk and branches being completely bright white on the outside, the inside being dark brown, and it's leaves silvery grey. It is sturdier than most lumber, but not by a substantial amount. The burnpoint however is four times that of regular birch, while it's life cycle is its one quarter. It also burns several times longer
The leaves produce some sort of smooth, thin silver dust that the winds pick up. In natural circumstances, a single august tree would only produce 1,5 new trees by the end of it's life time. The elves however managed to grow them in great numbers.

Usage

The august wood can nowhere else be found in the world, thus incredibely rare on its own, however besides that, it has a great range of utilization.

Forge fuel: the wood burns for long, and produces great heat, perfect for smithing

Smelting silver: mages figured out a way to smelt thousands of leaves to aquire silver from it

Crafting magical items: using the wood as basis, enchanting items with arcane power becomes far easier, requiring less from the crafter, and no arcane ink

Refining gems and jewelry: the dust of leaves protects the integrity of gems, allowing cuts to be made more easily

Drawback

The dust the trees produce contain silver. Too much exposure will result in argyria, the skin turnign a dark blue color.
Overplantation will lead to regular woods being wiped out.

Brief History

Discovered during the first decades of the Age of Star Fall, the local elves used it for decoration at first, before realizing its full potential. The lumber could burn for days, and provided great amounts of energy, arcane in nature. The first kingdom thus started harvesting it, creating items that held great prowess within using the magic lumber. Mages also started collecting the leaves, using them as ingredients for the rarest of potions.
As time went on, the need of this resource grew, and so did the guilds that burnt them. To make ample supply, the high elves started planting them anywhere they could, some even cutting down sections of forests to replace them with August Woods. Too late did they realize that this upset the local environment to the point that all the magical trees began changing the land and plantlife around them into silvery looks. By itself it was not terrible at first, however the grey ground would not yield grain or vegetables efficiently, and now almost everything was covered in silvery dust, which was partially made of just that - silver.
Mild illnesses broke out in several sectors, while most civilians started showing symptoms of argyria. It was easily removed with magic and had little to no negative effects. It hurt the pride of the elves who relished in their own natural beauty. Thus, countermeasures were set up. Around the most populated areas they started turning the land back to normal, aiming for a healthy balance between the August woods and the regular wilds.
These new measurements included the forced closing of many outlying villages, as well as the ingestion of specific fruits and vegetables that could contain the dust, which of course became quite impossible in times of winter. This led to a popular saying around the western nations:

"Only in Sylviria is it illegal to eat snow"

by #xerxidosz

(Sylviria on Aurelia's world map)