Tropical rainforest has more than 3,000 different types of timber species. According to the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia, out of these about 200 species are being used by the timber industry. Among the major timber consumers are housing developers, wood fabricators and furniture manufacturers where the need for recognition of wood species is necessary. Automatic wood recognition has no...

The efficiency of the water transport system in trees sets physical limits to their productivity and use. Although coordination carbon assimilation hydraulic functions has long been documented, mutual inter-relationships between wood anatomy, use have not yet jointly addressed comprehensive field studies. Based on observational data from 99 Indonesian rainforest tree species 37 families across ...

Treatments of knot-containing spruce wood blocks with a paramagnetic salt, gadolinium (III) chloride, in combination with solvent pretreatments, were evaluated as strategies to enhance the visualization of wood features by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Initial experiments with clear wood and excised knot samples showed differences in moisture uptake after pretreatments with selected solvent...

Wood represents the defining feature of forest systems, and often the carbon in woody debris has a long residence time. Globally, coarse dead wood contains 36–72 Pg C, and understanding what controls the fate of this C is important for predicting C cycle responses to global change. The fate of a piece of wood may include one or more of the following: microbial decomposition, combustion, consump...

Quantitative and qualitative data are presented for wood anatomy of 35 collections representing 22 Old World species of Ephedra; the survey of bark and pith anatomy is based on some of these species. Character-state ranges similar to those of the New World species are reported, although more numerous species show vessel absence in latewood. Little diminution in vessel diameter or density occurs...

Wood anatomy of the single spec ies of Cana comyrica (hitherto not studied) shows that it belongs in Myricaceae, although it differs from other genera in several respects (axial parenchyma grouped in bands or columns as well as diffuse ; Heterogeneou s Type I rays; more numerous bars per perforat ion plate). The latter two features are primitive for the family . The four genera (Canacomyrica. C...