Wood Anatomy of Shorea of Yellow Meranti (Meranti Damar Hitam) Group of Malay Peninsula

The study deals with the variations in physical, gross and microscopic anatomical features of different species of Shorea of Yellow Meranti group of Malay peninsula. Variance ratio (F) test indicated that inter- specific differences among the wood element dimensions of Shorea were significant for vessel element length, wall-thickness and fibre-diameter and non-significant for fibre length and wood density (α=0.05). However, intra-specific differences were non-significant for all the anatomical characters. Vessel element-length and -diameter showed negative while wood density showed positive correlation with fibre wall thickness. A dichotomous identification key is presented on the basis of anatomical characters to the species level of Yellow Meranti group. The dichotomy is based on a pair of contrasting characters like ray height, ray width, presence/absence of prismatic crystals and gum canal dimensions. Differences in quantitative characters were analyzed using 't' test for the mean. Hierarchical cluster analysis is done using qualitative and quantitative wood anatomical characters to understand the affinity of Shorea with in Yellow Meranti group and with other group of Shorea. S. maxima showed 0% similarity with other members of this group. S. faguetiana and S. multiflora showed 46% similarity with S. gibbosa, S. hopeifolia, S. resina-nigra and S. balanocarpoides. S. balanocarpoides showed 32% similarity with S. gibbosa, S. hopeifolia and S. resina - nigra.