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Friday, 7 April 2017
What is ‘wood’ – An anatomical re-definition
Published Date
Dendrochronologia 2013, Vol.31(3):187–191, doi:10.1016/j.dendro.2013.04.003 PERSONAL NOTE
Author
Fritz Hans Schweingruber a
Ulf Büntgen a,b,c,,
aSwiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape (WSL), 8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland
bOeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR), University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
cGlobal Change Research Centre AS CR, v.v.i., Bělidla 986/4a, CZ-60300 Brno, Czech Republic
Received 1 February 2013. Accepted 22 April 2013. Available online 31 July 2013.
Abstract The technical definition of ‘wood’ is well accepted, but its botanical understanding remains vague. Different degrees and amounts of lignification in plants and their imprecise description, together with a conceptually doubtful life form catalog including trees, shrubs and herbs further complicate our understanding of ‘wood’. Here, we use permanent micro sections to demonstrate that the xylem and bark of terrestrial plants can vary from one tissue with a few lignified cells to an almost fully lignified tissue. This universal principle of plant growth and stabilization, accounting for all taxonomic units within vascular plants, suggests that the classical life form separation into herbs, shrubs and trees is not valid. An anatomical-based differentiation between ‘wood’, ‘woody’ and ‘woodiness’ is also only meaningful if supplemented by insight on the particular plant section and its lignified proportion. We therefore recommend utilizing the botanically more neutral term ‘stem anatomy’ instead of ‘wood anatomy’, which further implies integration of the xylem and bark of all terrestrial plants. Since dendrochronology considers shrubs, dwarf shrubs and perennial herbs in addition to trees, its semantic expansion toward ‘xylemchronology’ might be worthwhile considering. Keywords
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