VOL. LVI.—No. 3,117. 
SATUKDAY, JULY 2C, 1913. 
THE GARDENERS’ MAGAZINE 
NOTE OF THE WEEK. 
-♦- 
Wood. 
To the horticulturist or general garden 
lover wood appears as the least interesting 
feature of plant growth, a mere accretion 
of material to form a framework for the 
foliage, fruit, or flowers, which constitute 
their peculiar cult. Many of the plants 
indeed, which are prized for their floral 
merits, form little wood 
proper, or even none, 
merely fleshy stalks and 
stems sufiicing to carry 
and display their leaves 
and flowers during the 
period necessary, and then 
sharing their fate by dying 
down to the ground and 
disappearing altogether. 
This is the case with all 
annuals and bulbous plants, 
but it is very different 
when we turn te robust 
vegetation of the tree and 
shrub type. In all these 
we find the formation of 
wood to be a constant 
and esential feature. It 
falls naturally into two dis¬ 
tinct categories, known to 
botanists as exogens and 
endogens. The exogens 
embrace the major part 
of the trees with w^hich we 
are familiar in the tem¬ 
perate zone, and as their 
name, which means “ out¬ 
side growers,” implies, form 
annually just beneath the 
ark a ring of new wood, 
^nile the “ endogens ” in¬ 
crease their girth by in- 
t^nal additions, and not 
A forming rings, nor is 
ore any bark proper on 
r though this is 
sua y harder and tougher 
y virtue of special cell 
rrangement. In many en- 
palms and 
^«-ferns, the trunk k 
the ot)i" ■ ^ persistent bases of 
the or, in 
which «... ^h© accumulated roots 
^he f^oni the crown and traverse 
hamboor^.iv" soil. The 
genous form of endo- 
tornis no quite another kind, which 
identical I*®* ’o reality 
Scale witl, * ructure, on a maybe gigantic 
'"be’wTth k! stalk., via., a 
centre and intervals, hollow in the 
is, however on the surface. It 
find thfi’„'" . ® "oods of exogens that 
greatest diversity. Every spe¬ 
cies and every variety of exogenous tree 
has its own particular peculiarity of tex¬ 
ture, hardness, colour, and other charac¬ 
ters, which only the actual users of such 
woods can properly appreciate. The woods 
of the various pines and conifers are, per¬ 
haps, predominant commercially, constitu¬ 
ting as they do the commonest builders’ 
material and the inner fittings of our domi¬ 
ciles. In oiir furniture, however, w^e find a 
large use for very different woods, mostly of 
MR. E. A. EBBLEWHITE, J.P., F.S.A., 
Clerk of the Worshipful Company of Gardeners. 
exotic origin ; and we have only to examine 
finely-cut and polished specimens of these 
to note what beautiful and varied grains 
and intricate designs are revealed by their 
section at different angles. Take, for in¬ 
stance, a panel of high-class birdseye 
maple, and see how far its internal cellular 
structure must depart from what we may 
term the common straight up and down 
run of an ordinary pine plank. Alany 
woods indeed are so pervaded by variant 
possibilities in the ornamental direction, 
that they are only used as veneers little 
thicker than paper; and by judicious se¬ 
lection of these and their juxtaposition, 
most beautiful symmetrical designs can be 
produced, which no artist could imagine for 
himself. Nevertheless if we study the 
genesis of any exogenous tree, it appears 
to be of so simple a character as to pre¬ 
clude such an eventual display. A tree 
commences as a tiny twig developed from 
the seed, a tiny centre of w’ood protected 
by a ring of bark. The second year w’o 
find that a larger ring, or rather really, a 
slender, conical cylinder of 
wood, has grown over the 
first, the riilg of bark ex¬ 
panding to encloso it This 
is the simple process, and 
as the tree grows the same 
thing continues, as if, it 
has been said, a fresh cone 
of larger diameter and taller 
growTh were slipped annn- 
ally over the previous ones. 
In the meantime, however, 
this simplicity has been 
modified by the fact that 
from lateral buds on the ori¬ 
ginal twig, now’ commencing 
to show as a trunk, other 
twigs have sprung, and 
acted independently on 
precisely the same lines 
of annual grow’th; so that, 
however old a tree may he, 
we can easily ascertain the 
age of any branch or twig 
by a section showing the 
niimher of rings it contains, 
precisely as if we fell the 
tree to the ground level w’e 
shall find its age revealed by 
the number of rings, by as¬ 
suming that the centre point 
is the surviving centre of 
the original twdglet pro¬ 
duced from the seed. Now 
this process of growth and 
lateral budding varies in 
every tree, and is affected by 
climate, environment, and 
seasonal changes. Of these 
lateral buds a large number 
perish as the tree develops, 
but their existence is per¬ 
manently registered wdthin the tree at the 
point of original generation by the conse¬ 
quent modification of the cell-growth. AYe 
see this in the obvious form of knots where 
they have formed branches before being 
lopped or destroyed by overgrow th or other 
Mr, E. A. Ebblewhite, J.P., 
F.S.A., w’hose portrait we have the plea¬ 
sure of giving herewith, is fully entitled 
to a prominent position in the fraternity 
of gardeners, for if he is not actually en¬ 
gaged the practical work of the craft he. 
