For all intents and purposes, the imperforate tracheary 
elements are libriform wood fibers. Inner apertures of 
pit-pairs are somewhat elongated and outer apertures are 
nearly circular. A minute, insignificant border may be 
observed under high magnification in some pits of some 
fibers. Walls are very thick ranging up to 8u. Lumina 
are equal to or less than the diameter of the walls and 
are often completely occluded by the growth of the 
secondary cell walls. Fiber length ranges from 750p- 
1437 and averages 1104, based on 50 measurements. 
Vascular rays range from 1—4 cells wide, 1-seriate and 
4-seriate rays being rare. Ray height ranges from one 
cell to over 25 cells, most rays being lower than 15 cells 
high. Rays are heterocellular with the terminal ray cells 
being square, squarish, or upright and with the body of 
the ray comprising only procumbent cells. Terminal ray 
extensions are ordinarily one or two cells high with uni- 
seriate extensions rarely reaching five or six cells high. 
These cells are slightly swollen as viewed in tangential 
section. 
Axial parenchyma is always paratracheal and may con- 
sist of a vasicentric sheath one to several cells wide around 
vessels and vessel groups; it may be aliform with short, 
broad wings; or sometimes it is even aliform-confluent. 
No secretory cells were observed in the secondary 
xylem. 
Because of the unusual nature of some of the morpho- 
logical features of Ocotea venenosa, namely, the fruit, the 
third author felt that an investigation of the secondary 
xylem might be instructive. Other than the exceptional 
coronated vessel elements described above and the some- 
what unusual absence of secretory cells, at least in the 
specimen examined, the xylem of O. venenosa falls well 
within the range of the xylem anatomical characteristics 
of Lauraceae described by Stern in 1954 (9). In that 
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