Characteristics Affecting Juvenile Wood

Abstract

Although it has not been generally recognized, juvenile wood has many characteristics similar to those of reaction wood — compression wood in the conifers and tension wood in the hardwoods (Zobel 1975a). In the conifers, both juvenile wood and compression wood have short cells with flat micro fibrillar angles and often a high lignin content; in hardwoods, juvenile fibers of both the diffuse- and ring-porous wood types are short and hardwoods have tension wood with a high cellulose content. When a tree is producing juvenile wood it is especially susceptible to environmental forces that cause formation of reaction wood, such as wind, ice and pest damage.