III.] THE CLASSIFICATION OF TIMBERS. 53 



it is a climbing plant which yields the wood in 

 question. Again, the bark and cortex in the young 

 and older states — its colour, thickness, texture, mode 

 of stripping, &c. Some trees are evergreen, others 

 deciduous ; some grow in swamps, others on dry 

 plains or hills ; some are gregarious, and so on. 

 Moreover, in classifying the trees of a large country, 

 the facts of geographical distribution of some of them 

 can often be utilized — for instance, no one need look 

 for teak on the Himalayan heights, nor for deodar in 

 the plains of Southern India, and, again, Heritiera 

 littoralis is a tree of the tidal forests of India and 

 Burma, and is not likely to be seen by a forest-officer 

 working away from such districts. Such facts as 

 these, amplified and accurately generalized, might be 

 made much use of in drawing up lists, &c., for the 

 guidance of those at work in geographically different 

 districts, as it is the timbers as commonly met with 

 in the yards that need classifying.^ 



It will be understood that the following table is of 

 course intended to be, not a complete classification of 

 timbers, but an illustration how such classification 

 might be possible, and gradually improved as time 

 and knowledge progress. 



1 Further information on this subject will be found in Laslett's 

 Timber and Timber Trees. Macmillan and Co., 1894. 



