WOOD RESEARCH Volume 62, Number 3, 2017
Xu Bin, Yang Zhao Ying, Liu Shuai, and Chao Juan

Comparative identification and analysis amongst suspected gold Phoebe sp. buried wood

Buried wood samples of gold “Phoebe sp.” (Samples #1, #2 and #3) were identified based on their microstructures and on the comparison of their characteristics with relevant specimen types. The result showed all the samples belong to the family Lauraceae. Samples #1 and #3 of the Machilus Nees were identified as Phoebe sheareri and P. zhennan, respectively, they are also known as “Nanmu”. Meanwhile #2 was also referred to as Machilus Nees, but named as “Nanmu with black bark”. Significant differences in anatomical characteristics were determined amongst the three samples; thus, they could not be classified as gold Phoebe sp. Moreover, the practical densities of the samples showed no marked increase relative to the species in literature. Microscopy also exhibited no rare mineral enrichment in the cell lumen or the intercellular space. Results of this study indicated that the three samples do not belong to the category of buried wood or ebony.

Nezaradené / WOOD RESEARCH Volume 62, Number 3, 2017
Sha Sha Song, Benhua Fei, Xiao Huan Wang, Jun Ni, and Li Hongyao

Effects of different types of housing environments on the physical index and physiological index

The aim of this present study was to promote the quality of living environment, and create a healthy living environment through advocating for low carbon and green buildings. An additional aim is gaining recognition for wood structured housing, thus gaining recognition in customers and consumption to further promote the green ecological and sustainable development of wood structured houses. This work examined the physical environment indexes and physiological indexes of the participants in three different structure types of housing environment with behavioral analysis (CAPTIV) and environmental data (BAPPU) synchronous test system. The results of the MANOVA revealed a significant main effect for the housing environment indexes with temperature, moisture content, noise, illumination, air flow rate and skin temperature, ECG, and respiration of three different structure types (log, glulam, reinforced concrete). In comparison, the influence of the physical environment factors in both the log structure and the glulam structure housing were better than the reinforced concrete structure housing. It indicated that woody housing environment was benefit to the health of habitants. Participants were interested in the log structure and glulam structure housing environment with joy and comfortable feelings. Different proportion of building environment and interior wooden decoration proportion can influence different cognitive and feelings of habitants. Therefore, wooden housing environment is helpful to adjust emotion, relieve work pressure and improve tasty, which would provide people with both physical and mental benefits.

WOOD RESEARCH Volume 65, Number 2, 2020
Mohsen Bahmani, Leila Fathi, Gerald Koch, Farhad Kool, Hamed Aghajani, and Miha Humar

Heartwood and sapwood features of Sorbus torminalis grown in iranian forests

In the present study anatomical, histometrical, chemical and physical properties of the wood of 45-year old trees were determined. For this purpose, three trees were randomly cut at Sangdeh-Mazndaran located in the northern part of Iran. Disks and logs were removed at breast height to study the respective wood properties. Fiber length, fiber diameter, fiber lumen diameter, cell wall thickness as well as lignin and cellulose content of sapwood are superior to those of heartwood. Growth rings boundaries are fairly distinct and can be distinguished by only two to three compact fiber layers. The wood is diffuse-porous and vessels are small and predominately solitary, hardly visible to the naked eye on transverse sections. Most rays are 2-seriate interspersed with only few 3-seriate and uniseriate rays, and composed of procumbent body cells with occasional marginal rows of upright and/or square cells.