Evaluation on paper making potential of nine Eucalyptus species based on wood anatomical features

Abstract

tEucalypt wood is known worldwide as a raw-material for pulping but only a few species are used by theindustry. One of the important features for pulping is the wood structure and anatomy, including cellbiometry and cell type proportion. This work makes a prospective study of nine eucalypt species aimingat a pulping use by an early assessment of wood anatomical features. Young 50-month-old trees grownin the same environment of Eucalyptus camaldulensis, Eucalyptus globulus, Eucalyptus maculata, Eucalyp-tus melliodora, Eucalyptus ovata, Eucalyptus propinqua, Eucalyptus sideroxylon, Eucalyptus tereticornis andEucalyptus viminalis were studied in relation to wood anatomy, cell biometry and proportion, and mor-phological fibre ratios. The nine species are structurally similar with typical eucalypt wood features, e.g.diffuse porosity with predominantly solitary vessels and simple perforations plates, and most anatomicaldifferences between species related to rays and axial parenchyma. The wood is in general uniform andthe radial variation of cellular dimensions is of small magnitude. The species showed a higher diversityregarding proportion of fibres (15–50%) and morphological characteristics e.g. slenderness ratio (39–48)and flexibility coefficient (0.37–0.65). The eucalypt species position themselves differently as regards thecombination of morphological parameters, therefore allowing species targeting for specific paper prop-erties. By considering these indicators, and the relative species growth, it seems promising to furtherstudy E. maculata, E. ovata and E. sideroxylon as potential new paper making eucalypt species, in parallelto the prized E. globulus and the already used E. camaldulensis