The adsorption of two basic dyes, methylene blue (MB) and crystal violet (CV) on wood apple shell (WAS) were investigated using a batch adsorption technique. A series of experiments were undertaken in an agitated batch adsorber to assess the effect of the system variables such as solution pH, dye concentration and temperature. Removal of dyes was observed to be most effective at higher pH. Freundlich and Langmuir isotherm models were applied to the equilibrium data. The results showed that Langmuir equation fits better than the Freundlich equation. It was observed that the WAS adsorbent showed higher adsorption capacity for crystal violet (130 mg/g) than methylene blue (95.2 mg/g). The FTIR studies indicate that the interaction of dye and WAS surface is via the nitrogen atoms of the adsorbate and oxygen groups of the adsorbent. The adsorption of dyes onto WAS proceeds according to a pseudo-second-order model. Thermodynamic parameters such as free energy (Delta G degrees), enthalpy (Delta H degrees) and entropy (Delta S degrees) were also calculated. The studies show that WAS, a lignocellulosic inexpensive material, can be an alternative to other expensive adsorbents used for dye removal in wastewater treatment. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V.