Wood Anatomy & Major uses of Wood

Wood Anatomy & Major uses of Wood

Wood is a specialized tissue designed by nature and no other material can substitute it. The uses of wood are numerous. Botanists & Foresters admit without any hesitation that the judicious use of the natural forests for timber source mainly depends on a thorough knowledge of the characteristics of timber itself.

With the advent of sophisticated equipment there is a phenomenal advancement of our understanding of wood structure. However, we still depend increasingly on the empirical knowledge for the selection of wood for a particular use. In this age of biotechnology and molecular biology there is an apathy among students to study classical subjects such as wood science. Nevertheless, the author has ventured to offer elementary treatise of wood anatomy and related topics with the hope that as the time goes on, our dependence on wood will increase as it is a ubiquitous, common, convenient and easily renewable material. Therefore, the knowledge of wood characteristics needs to be further expanded.

The present treatise is based on the idea that to build a broad foundation for better understanding of wood for its wider utilization, the basic features should be percepted. Therefore, an endeavor has been made to cover as many features of wood as possible. The author has given attention to development and structure of wood, dendrochronology, dendroclimatology, natural defects, secretory structures and other inclusions in the wood, heartwood formation and the major uses of wood. The author has also tried to synthesize a correlation between descriptive, systematic, phylogenetic, functional and ecological wood anatomy.

Most of the illustrations are from the autho's collection of photographs, scanning electron micrographs, photomicrographs and drawing made during the study on Indian woods.