- Title
- Physiological changes during heartwood formation in young Eucalyptus bosistoana trees
- Creator
- Mishra, Gayatri; Collings, David A.; Altaner, Clemens M.
- Relation
- IAWA Journal Vol. 39, Issue 4, p. 382-394
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22941932-20170210
- Publisher
- Brill
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2018
- Description
- Eucalyptus bosistoana F. Muell. is valued for its naturally durable heartwood. As part of an E. bosistoana breeding programme, we have tested the hypothesis that there is a prolonged transition from sapwood to heartwood in young trees, resulting in a wide transition zone. This needs to be considered when assessing trees for heartwood quantity and quality. Heartwood formation was investigated in radial profiles in cores from bark to bark of 6-year-old trees with conventional and confocal microscopy, and with a range of different staining techniques that visualised the physiological changes taking place in the parenchyma cells. Using immunolabelling with antibodies against histone proteins and α-tubulin, histochemical staining using potassium iodide (I3-KI) and fluorescence emission spectral scanning, we demonstrated that in heartwood nuclei, microtubules, reserve materials (starch) and vacuoles were absent. The observations revealed that 6-year-old E. bosistoana trees contained heartwood. The loss of water conductivity by tyloses formation and the death of the parenchyma cells occurred in close proximity resulting in a transition zone of ~1 cm.
- Subject
- amyloplasts; confocal microscopy; extractives; juvenile corewood; nuclei; parenchyma cells; ray cells; tyloses; wood
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1405074
- Identifier
- uon:35439
- Identifier
- ISSN:0928-1541
- Language
- eng
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