Cellular Structure Of Hardwood

The microscope reveals that wood is composed of minute units called cells.

Cellular structure of hardwood.

On page 82 of textbook. For simplicity s sake vessel elements will simply be referred to as pores throughout this website. In simple terms a tree can be described as a bundle of vessels. Hardwood xylem four main cell types.

According to estimates 1 cubic metre about 35 cubic feet of spruce wood contains 350 billion 500 billion cells. Vessels tracheids fibers and parenchymal cells tracheids are not common. Represents the transverse section or a plane parallel to the top sur face of a stump or the end sur. Structure of a softwood figure 2 is a drawing of the cell structure of a minute block of softwood white pine.

Wood is a porous three dimensional hydroscopic interconnecting matrix of cellulose hemicelluloses and lignin. Hardwood xylem wood is composed of at least 4 major kinds of cells. Fig 1 cell structure of a hardwood m 146 682 2 2. Vessel elements are the largest type of cells and unlike the other hardwood cell types they can be viewed individually oftentimes even without any sort of magnification.

Hardwoods contain vessels softwoods do not. In transverse or cross sections the annual rings appear like concentric bands with rays extending outward like the spokes of a wheel. Cellular structure to understand the behavior of wood and its requirements for long term preservation one can benefit by looking at the physical and cellular structure of a tree. They can be found around vessels in quercus and as vessel like tracheids in the latewood in ulmus.

Each of which may constitute 15 or more of the volume see table 5 1. Softwoods are made of tracheids and parenchyma and hardwoods of vessel members fibres. The microscopic cellular structure of wood including annual rings and rays produces the characteristic grain patterns in different species of trees the grain pattern is also determined by the plane in which the logs are cut at the saw mill. Cellular structure of hardwood vs softwood the differences between hardwoods and softwoods come from the difference in their cellular structure.

The basic cell types are called tracheids vessel members fibres and parenchyma. Wood wood microstructure. Softwoods which come from conifers such as fir pine and cedar have a simple cellular structure with 90 95 of the cells being longitudinal tracheids.