VARIATION OF DENSITY IN THE WOOD OF PINUS PATULA GROWN IN KENYA

Abstract

<l type="ord"><li> The specific gravity was determined for the individual rings of twenty-three 13-year-old stems of <it>Pinus patula</it> grown in Kenya and also separately on the early and late wood of six rings. </li><li> Significant correlations were found between specific gravity and both ring width and age ofthe ring from the pith. The effect of ring width was slight with more than six rings to the inch. </li><li> A comparison with Turnbull's data from South African trees of the same species confirmed his results only in the first nine rings from the pith. </li><li> The mean specific gravity of the early wood in five rings was 0.368 compared with 0.469 forthe late wood. This high value for the early wood and the small difference between early and late wood was due to the thickness of the walls in the early-wood tracheids. Similar thickwalled early-wood tracheids were observed in Kenya species of <it>Juniperus</it> and <it>Podocarpus</it>. </li></l>