• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.3-8
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• 1977

A bark comprises about 10 to 20 percents of a typical log by volume, and is generally considered as an unwanted residue rather than a potentially valuable resource. As the world has been confronted with decreasing forest resources, natural resources pressure dictate that a bark should be a raw material instead of a waste. The utilization of the largely wasted bark of genus Quercus grown in Korea can be enhanced by learning its anatomical structure and properties. In this paper, bark characteristics of Quercus grown in Korea are described. In bark anatomy, general features such as color of rhytidome, exfoliating form, color of periderm, arrangement of periderm, and thickness of the inner and outer hark. etc., arc discussed. Studies on the microscopic structure include sieve tube, companion cell, parenchyma, pholem fiber, ray, periderm(phelloderm, phelloogen, phellem), sclereid, and crystal, etc. The results may be summarized as follows: 1. In general characteristics of rhytidomes, exfoliating is not easy and sclereids are distint to the naked eye. Inner bark is thicker than that of outer bark except in case of Q. variabilis. 2. It is not clear to distinguish between phelloderm and phellogen in Quercus bark. The phellem is developed conspicuously in Q. variabilis but that of Q. accutissima is composed of thinwalled phellem and thickwalled stone cell. 3. Quercus Bark has sieve tube, companion cell, phloem fiber and sclereid. Sclereids of Quercus bark are the most distinguished characteristics comparing with pinus and populus. The volume percent of sclereids are higher than that of fiber. 4. Rays are 1~3 seriate, and multiseriate ranging with from 15 to 20. 5. Parenchyma cell contains two types, polygonal and druses crystal.