WISCONSIN — The 50,000th wood specimen has been catalogued into the Forest Products Laboratory Center for Wood Anatomy Research Madison Wood Collection. Collected by Dr. Michael Nee in the Andean mountains of Bolivia from a small tree in the Verbenaceae family called Recordia boliviana moldenke, the addition of this 50,000th wood specimen is in his honor. Dr. Nee started collecting wood specimens in Wisconsin in 1969.

The Research Wood Collections at the Forest Products Laboratory are one of the largest historic, geographically and taxonomically diverse research wood collections in the world. Reaching 50,000 wood specimens catalogued into the Forest Products Laboratory Madison Wood Collection is a monumental milestone. 

“The 50,000th specimen to our Madison Wood Collection marks a significant step towards the digitization and preservation of our research wood collections,” said Dr. Rafael Arevalo, botanist and collections manager for the Forest Products Laboratory Research Wood Collections. “It is not only a testimony of our growing collection, but also of our work towards making the collections available to the wood research community, government agencies, students, educators and the public.” 

The Center for Wood Anatomy Research was one of the original research groups when the Forest Products Laboratory opened its doors in 1910. Dr. Eloise Gerry, the first female scientist and project leader in the Forest Service, worked as a botanist specializing in the cutting of wood samples and studying their anatomy. Working as a microscopist, Gerry made huge strides in wood properties research within a few years of starting by building the collection of wood samples.  

Forest Products Laboratory’s Center for Wood Anatomy Research works to curate, maintain for posterity and grow the xylaria (scientific wood collections and associated materials), and conduct basic and applied research in three broad areas of wood anatomy: botanical wood anatomy, biocentric wood science and forensic wood anatomy.