Student activities and instructor-made models are described to facilitate and encourage other instructors to develop their own appropriate activities and models for teaching the three-dimensional structure of wood.
The teaching activities include making several annual rings with straws pushed into clay, drawing wood’s structure onto a piece of paper that...
This review presents a framework for evaluating how cells, tissues, organs, and whole plants perform both hydraulic and mechanical functions. The morphological alterations that affect dual functionality are varied: individual cells can have altered morphology; tissues can have altered partitioning to functions or altered cell alignment; and organs and whole...
This appendix to my dissertation documents how I worked with poison oak plants as a subject of study for three years. It contains practical suggestions for people who have my level of sensitivity (low to moderate). I expect it may be useful for hikers, mountain bikers, woodland owners, people in...
Our goals were to quantify how non-embolism-inducing pressure gradients influence trunk sapwood specific conductivity (ks) and to compare the impacts of constant and varying pressure gradients on ks with KCl and H2O as the perfusion solutions. We studied six woody species (three conifers and three angiosperms) which varied in pit...
Bark plays a critical role in the life of a tree when it is standing. Once the tree is felled, however, bark has minimal value and
may be a net financial loss to the forest industry. Because of bark’s limited worth, logs are often bought and sold based on under...
• Hydraulic vulnerability of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) branchlets
decreases with height, allowing shoots at greater height to maintain hydraulic
conductance (Kshoot) at more negative leaf water potentials (Ψl).
• To determine the basis for this trend shoot hydraulic and tracheid anatomical
properties of foliage from the tops of Douglas-fir trees...
The crooked stems of some individuals of radiata pine (Pinus radiata D. Don) can hinder volume recovery and wood quality. To infer causes of crookedness and to learn how angle affects compression wood (CW) formation we studied 4+1-year old trees in southern Chile. Eight initially straight and 8 initially crooked...
The relative importance of density, acoustic velocity, and microfibril angle (MFA) for the prediction of the stiffness (MOE) and strength (MOR) has not been well established for Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii). MOE and MOR of small clear specimens of mature wood were better predicted by density and velocity than by either...
The air‐seeding hypothesis predicts that xylem embolism resistance is linked directly to bordered pit functioning. We tested this prediction in trunks, roots, and branches at different vertical and radial locations in young and old trees of Pseudotsuga menziesii. Dimensions of bordered pits were measured from light and scanning electron micrographs,...
We sampled boles, branches, and roots of four Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii) trees to learn a) whether branches and roots have a zone of juvenile wood, defined as a zone with progressive changes in wood density and/or tracheid length from the pith outward at successively greater cambial
ages, and...