Wood specific gravity of some tree species in the Garhwal Himalayas, India

Abstract

Estimation of terrestrial biomass depends critically on reliable information about wood specific gravity of forest trees. In recent years, wood specific gravity has become more important when exploring the universality of functional traits of plants and estimating their global carbon stocks. To estimate their specific gravity, wood samples were collected from a total of 34 tree species, 30 from lower elevations and 4 from upper elevations in the Garhwal Himalayas, India. The results show that the average wood specific gravity was 0.631 (ranging between 0.275 ± 0.01 and 0.845 ± 0.03) for the species at lower elevations and 0.727 (ranging between 0.628 ± 0.02 and 0.865 ± 0.02) for the upper elevations. The average wood specific gravity for the upper elevation species was 9.6% greater than that for the species at lower elevations. Aegle marmelos among the lower elevation species and Quercus leucotrichophora among the upper elevation species had the highest wood specific gravity, which were 0.845 ± 0.03 and 0.865 ± 0.02, respectively.