会议名称：2010木文化国际研讨会——古木文化产业和遗产保护与修复
会议时间：2010年10月23日-24日
会议地点：中国·陕西

报告嘉宾：Pieter Baas 
　　　　　博士　荷兰国家标本馆主管

报告摘要：

In this talk I will review the role that wood has played to inspire scientists from Greek antiquity onwards. We owe a systematic account of timber as a highly diverse forest product and commodity to the Greek philosopher Theophrastus (about 2300 years BP). He emphasised the relationships between growth conditions and wood quality and could study many timbers coming from a wide geographical range, thanks to the expeditions and conquests by Alexander the Great. The understanding of wood structure and properties received a new impetus with the development of the microscope in 17th century Europe, with pionering contributions by Hooke, Grew, Malpighi and Leeuwenhoek. The development of a comparative wood science was also facilitated by the simultaneous origin of wood collections, initially forming part of Curiosity Cabinets, later as resources for teaching and research in about 130 institutional wood collections worldwide, currently curating a total number of over 1.1 million wood samples. Modern wood research is of great relevance to wood culture and society. In my talk I will only highlight two contrasting aspects: a) the non-invasive microscopic identification of very valuable wooden works of art, and b) the information content of wood structure as an ecological proxy for studying global climate change. I will emphasize that for a better understanding of wood culture we must – like Theophrastus – first of all understand the multiple functions of wood in the living tree.