Abstract
Since the first report on the wood anatomy of Japanese conifers by Yaroku Nakamura in 1882, Japanese wood anatomists have continued to publish descriptions of the anatomical characteristics of Japanese woody plants for more than 100 years. Descriptions of foreign timber species started later and have appeared to a great extent to meet the demand of the Japanese timber industry since 1960s. The wood antomical identification systems started as dichotomous keys, then evolved into multiple-entry keys usually employing sorting cards, and finally developed into computerized keys with the recent prevalence of personal computers. Reflecting the maturity of the wood anatomical studies in Japan, various types of textbooks, guidebooks, and atlases have come to be published. IAWA has been providing an international meeting ground to Japanese wood anatomists to exchange research results and ideas with foreign researchers.
