310 APPENDIX IV 



TliG Protedcece have mostly moderately hard, reddish woods, distinctly 

 *' ring -porous," having the " pores," or transverse sections of their tracheal 

 tissue, confined to the earHer-formed wood of each ring. Like the Oaks, they 

 are remarkable foi their conspicuous broad pith-rays. In a transverse 

 section of the wood (Plate I.) these appear as broad lines of parallel cells, 

 occasionally widening out, as seen near the bottom of the plate. In a tangential 

 section (Plate III.) they appear as prominent spindle-shaped masses of cells 

 in the irregular mesh-work of the wood, suggesting, as Mr. Stone says, when 

 speaking of one species, " the fibres of a Loofah." In a radial section 

 (Plate 11.) they form a " silver grain " of broad dark plates. Unlike the 

 Oaks, the Protedcece. generally have the pores of nearly uniform size, and they 

 s,re seldom large. They vary considerably in their arrangement, forming, 

 for example, regular rings in Hdhea, the " Pin-bush " of Eastern Australia, 

 but a series of curves between the rays in Bdnhsia (Plate I.). These curves 

 are convex in their outer margins, or, as they have been termed, " dentate." 



Bdnhsia serrdta, from which species our photo-micrographs are taken, is 

 one of the " Honeysuckles " of Eastern Austraha, trees of moderate size, 

 yielding a handsome Mahogany-coloured wood, coarse and open in grain, 

 and rendered ornamental by its silver grain. The curves or " loops " of 

 pores are from two to five pores wide, and the pores are somewhat crowded 

 together, whilst the width of the porous and that of the non-porous part of 

 ^ach " ring " are about equal. The rays are not generally more than twelve 

 cells in width ; but the tangential section (Plate III.) shows them to be more 

 than four times as deep as their width. In the radial section (Plate II.) the 

 rings are clearly indicated by the Hues of pores, and the " mirrors " of the 

 silver grain are lustrous. 



Hard-woods may well be divided into two groups, according to whether 

 annual rings are distinctly discernible, as in Bdnhsia and in Plates XIII. to XL.s 

 or not, as in Plates IV. to XII. Most of this latter group are tropical woods, 

 and in many of them (Plates IV. to VII.) annual rings are more or less dis- 

 tinctly simulated by wavy concentric or excentrio partial or complete zones 

 of soft tissue, chiefly wood-parenchyma, known as " false rings." These often 

 run into one another, which true annual rings never do. No European woods 

 belong to the group characterized by the presence of these "false rings," 

 unless, perhaps, the OHve may be so described. Among the woods of this 

 group are some having both broad and narrow pith-rays, such as the Indian 

 Oaks Quercus lamdlosa and Q. incdna ;^ but usually all the rays are narrow. 



Plate IV. represents the wood of the Moreton Bay, or Large-leaved, Pig of 

 North-East Australia (Ficus maorophylla). The alternating bands of hard and 

 soft tissue— thick-walled and thin-walled parenchyma— -of which the latter 

 is generally shghtly the wider, closely simulate annual rings. The pith-rays 

 are of two thicknesses, but none of them broad, and they have a wavy course, 

 being displaced by the large pores. The pores are not numerous, are irregu- 

 larly scattered in both hard and soft wood, and are often divided into two or 



^ Gamble, Manual of Indian Timbers, Plate XIV., Figs. 3 and 4. 



