THE STRUCTURE AND USE OF THE PARANA PINE 

 FORESTS OF BRAZIL 



(Contribution from the Yale Scliool of Forestry, No. 3) 



By H. N. Whitford 



In the search for raw materials of kimber. the possibihties of trop- 

 ical and subtropical forests have usually been overlooked. While the 

 Parana pine (Aroucaria braailiana) region of southern Brazil has been 

 mentioned as a probable source of lumber, its importance has not been 

 sufficieiitly emphasized. This tree grows in commercial quantities in 

 the plateau region of Parana, Santa Catharina. Rio Grande do Sul. 

 Small areas also occur in the States of Minas and Sao Paulo. \Miile 

 it has a botanical range of from 20° S. to 30° S. latitude, its commer- 

 cial range is restricted mostly betw^een the parallels of 22° S. and 2"/° S. 



The three States mentioned above contain an area of some 575,000 

 square miles. According to the best reports available, 336,000 square 

 miles of this area contains forest growth of some kind, of which more 

 than 100,000 square miles is a conservative estimate of the area within 

 which merchantable quantities of Parana pine are found. Figures con- 

 cerning the amount of timber within this area have never been made. 

 One lumber company has under its control some six billion feet of the 

 timber which will average 8,000 board feet per acre, including the 

 blanks in the forest. Excluding such blanks, the average is near to 

 12,000 feet per acre. Some areas which I saw will produce as high 

 as 25,000 board feet per acre. Many other parts of the region are 

 broken by large areas of prairie and hardwood forests. To make allow- 

 ance for these large blanks, reduce the area to 60,000 square miles and 

 the amount per acre to 5,000 feet, and we have a stand of timber that 

 is about two hundred billion feet. From what I saw of the region I 

 should judge that fifty billion feet of this is accessible to present lines 

 of transportation. 



Botanically speaking, the Parana pine does not occur in pure forests. 

 Like many tropical and subtropical forests, its structure contains four 

 fairly well defined stories. The upper story, or cap, is from 80 to 120 

 feet in height, composed entirely of Parana pine. The third story 

 contains trees 60 to 80 feet in height, composed mostly of 8 or 10 species 

 of the family Lauracese, known in southern Brazil as the Canellas. One 

 of these, known as Embuia (Ncctandra sp.), comprises 50 or more 



