Wood ID No1.

TheGreenMan

Native
Feb 17, 2006
1,000
8
beyond the pale
As wood is from a tree and a tree is a plant, I’m thinking this is the right forum to post this.

This has been sent to me from the Malaysia region, and I’ve no idea whether it’s a native species, naturalised species, or if the wood was imported into the Malaysia region. If it was imported it might be something like Monkey Pod, which although is a native species of South American countries, I understand, has been naturalised in parts of India and Burma.

It has bands of interlocked growth rings. The growth rings are generally indistinct and few. It seems like a medium density hardwood, to me at least, with open pores on the straight cut sides of the block. I’ve no idea if it’s sap wood, heart wood, or a combination of both with indistinct differences in density and/or colour. The overall colour is of a pale creamy-pink with occasional sreaks of grey where the medullary rays reach the surface of the block.

Straight cut grain:

straight_cut_01.jpg


straight_cut_02.jpg


End grain showing growth rings such as they are, running diagonally top to bottom (only one really prominent), and grey rays (if that’s what they are), running diagonally left to right. The interlocked grain is indicated by the torn fibres on the right of centre on the front vertical plane:

transverse_grain.jpg


This is the better photo of the transverse cell structure I can do. The only major ring pores on the sample can be seen running diagonally right to left in the top section of the photo. The ring pores are arranged in a line of single pores. The rest of the pores seem to be arranged Diffuse and Solitary. If someone with experience of identifying species from transverse wood samples, would like more detail, I could try doing a drawing from observations with a hand lens, if that would help:

transverse_cell_structure.jpg


Here’s hoping!

Best regards,
Paul.
 

TheGreenMan

Native
Feb 17, 2006
1,000
8
beyond the pale
BOD tells me that the wood may be from a Shorea of some sort . This is useful to know, as this information would narrow my search down to just 360 species of plant :D

I’m beginning to understand, in a very real, very personal way, that “biological diversity” isn’t just a snappy phrase used by TV presenters. I mean, I thought that I’d have my work cut-out learning about the 30 or so, species of tree Native to the UK, the mind boggles as to the number of total species of tree that must be in Malaysian forests.

Best regards,
Paul.
 

TheGreenMan

Native
Feb 17, 2006
1,000
8
beyond the pale
Following on from the suggestion that the wood block may be a type of Shorea, I’ve done a little more research.

As with the ‘tamarind’ sample in the thread here http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?p=377288&posted=1#post377288 I’m running into the problem of several species sharing the same English common names, listing and cross referencing the SE Asian common names would make it even more confusing.

Examples:
White Meranti - Shorea assamica Dyer (GRIN), Shorea henryana Pierre (GRIN) (Smit), Shorea hypochra Hance (GRIN) (Smit), Shorea roxburghii G. Don (GRIN) (Smit)

Yellow Meranti - Shorea acuminatissima Symington (FWI), Shorea multiflora (Burck) Symington (GRIN) (FWI)

White Lauan - Shorea contorta S. Vidal (GRIN), Shorea leprosula Miq. (Wang) (Smit), Shorea leptocladus Symington (FWI) , Shorea squamata Dyer (Wang)

[source for above: http://www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au/Sorting/Frontpage.html ]

This is a transverse cell structure microphoto of a species named as White Lauan (Shorea spp) in Identifying Wood by R Bruce Hoardley:
white_lauan.jpg


This is a transverse cell structure microphoto of a species listed as White Meranti (Shorea spp) in Identifying Wood by R Bruce Hoardley:
white_meranti.jpg


Other image sources for the English common name of White Meranti can be found here:
http://www.ebarito.com/species-web/white_meranti/white_meranti.htm
http://www.ebarito.com/species-web/red_meranti/red_meranti.htm

This is an enlarged image of a macro photo I have taken from the wood block. Even with the very poor image quality, it’s immediately apparent that this is not the same species as either of the two microphotos above:
transverse_cell_structure_02-1.jpg


The research continues, although at some point I feel I’m going to have to concede defeat and seek professional advice on this one.
 

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