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Figured Wood Home

Please use our new website- you are now being forwarded to
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Hi Cherry :-)
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What is figured wood? Wood has always been appreciated for its decorative value. Some wood has particularly lively pattern or figure , due mainly to deviations in wood grain. These distortions in wood grain give rise to the decorative figure found in burls and well-known wood varieties such as curly birch, bird’s eye maple, and quilted maple, among many others.

At present, the causative factors underlying figured wood formation are largely unknown , and little research has been done to investigate the role of genetics in this process.

For more information on figured wood, see "Figure in Wood: An Illustrated Review" by Harold Beals and Terry C. Davis. Alabama Agricultural Experimental Station. Website:http://www.ag.auburn.edu/aaes/ communications/bulletins/figureinwood/index.html
Why do we want to study figured wood?
A comparison between “normal” wood and the “defects” of figured wood may inform us about the process of wood formation. This is especially intriguing if the defects have a genetic rather than environmental cause. If we can trigger tree cells from sites of figured wood formation to form new trees out of their normal environment and in the absence of disease causing organisms, we have a good indication that the defect has a genetic cause. If the defective wood can be propagated AND has a genetic cause AND a decorative value, then we have the prospect of generating a new variety for the forestry plantation industry. Since tree growth takes time, we want to keep expectations low for the time being– no quick money will be made in this business! Nevertheless, now is the time to act, as we still have old growth forests with unexplored potentials, along with the technology to induce plants from small amounts of the wood-forming cambium found below the bark.