encountered in European painting panels, one can quickly learn to recog-
nize and match the basic diagnostic anatomical features of this group.
Before any attempt is made to prepare slides for microscopic
examination, the novice to wood identification should be especially
apprised of two points. First, the orientation of the longitudinal direction
(grain direction), as well as the placement of growth rings and rays, must
be clearly understood, because sections, to be useful, must be taken along
accurate transverse, radial, and tangential planes. Second, it is imperative
that sections be smoothly sliced with minimum cellular damage and that
they be sufficiently thin. Sections need not be large (2–3 mm is plenty), but
they must be thin (ideally one to two cell diameters thick). Developing the
skill of hand-slicing thin and undamaged sections with a razor blade is per-
haps the greatest challenge, and mastery requires practice. Without rea-
sonably well-made slides, attempts to identify a wood will likely be futile.
In the evaluation of the anatomical features of an unknown wood
in order to match a particular species and thereby to identify it, a number
of resources are recommended, including macro- and micrographs, writ-
ten descriptions, and, especially, documented wood samples, from which
comparison slides are prepared. Every conservation laboratory is likely
to have samples of at least the more common woods. Adding samples of
species that are confusing look-alikes is highly recommended.
As a final precaution, it is important to guard against the inclina-
tion to force a match offeatures of an unknown with those of one of the
woods listed in Table 1: the conservator should always be alert to the possi-
bility that the unknown wood is not one of the familiar or common woods.38 Hoadley