Caracterización anatómica de cuatro especies forestales comerciales del noroccidente de Pichincha, cantón Puerto Quito.

Abstract

Biodiversity in Ecuador makes up a natural heritage for humanity, the anatomy of wood in the branch of Biology that studies the xylem, log or wood with the purpose of knowing it internally and giving it a good use. This research proposes to determine the microscopic and macroscopic characteristics of four commercial forest species from the canton of Puerto Quito, Pichincha Province, with the purpose of contributing to the Ecuadorian industry in order to have a better advantage and use of it. For the dendrological identification, the herbariums were used from the Escuela Superior Politécnica de Chimborazo and the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. For the anatomical analysis cubes of 2 cm3 were made, the cubes were softened using the autoclave, with a temperature of 121 ºC and a pressure of 1.1 atm per cycle. The slices (transversal, tangential and radial) were made with the rotating microtome with a size of 0.3 micros each sheet, to be submerged in the combined Safranina/Astrablue stain, making it possible to observe in each one of the cuts the structures of the wood. For the macroscopic characteristics, texture, grains, brightness, smell and taste were taken into account; test pieces with dimensions of 15*9*2 cm were made. A fresh cube was measured by taking its weight to calculate its density. Fresh sawdust was also used and mixed with distilled water to determine the pH of each species. In the statistical analysis, comparative tables are made taking into account the perimeter and pore quantity through an analysis of variance. It is concluded that the staining used turnet out to be very good, which managed to observe the structures of the species, although the four species belong to different families.

KEYWORDS: MACROSCOPIC CHARACTERISTICS // MICROSCOPIC CHARACTERISTIC // WOOD // HERBARIUM