Wood remains in Baltic and Bitterfeld amber (2)

The most interesting view of the amber wood is a radial one, such as if a stem or branch is chopped longitudinally through its center along the fibre direction. Up to now, thin sections and varnish films were used to investigate amber wood. A microscopic view on wood particles split up radially results in important details, so with a splinter 2.2 mm long (below):

The vessel cells (longitudinal tracheids), horizontal in the image, but vertical in a stem, are crossed by wood rays, vertical in the image. The wood ray to the right has only one cell, the wood ray to the left is six cells high. To the right, the tracheids end more or less pointed; the continuing tracheids which followed here are now lacking.
The amber wood longitudinal tracheids show "bordered pits" (typical for gymnosperms) in the early wood. Pits are thin areas of the cellular walls, which were also formed at the same of the former neighbouring cell (now lacking). The adjoining "halfs" of the bordered pits form a semipermeable membane with s sort of emergency stopper.
Here, the longitudinal tracheids (horizontal in the image and mostly covered; without bordered pits, because no early wood) are crossed by a wood ray with cells vertical in the image, which continues farther to the right. Alt least the outermost two cell chains to the right are transverse tracheids, recognizable by their small borderd pits. The six slight darker cells to the left are wood ray parenchym cells with simple pits, which corresponded to pits in the teared-out longitudinal tracheids, which covered the wood ray before.
Teared out by swelling resin: a single wood ray parenchym cell with simple pits and, beneath, the remain of a transverse tracheeid with one small bordered pit.
Comparision with recent wood: Fir (abies) wood cut radially, with circular brodered pits on the early wood longitudinal tracheids and with small simple pits in the woodray cells (left). Fir wood lacks of transverse tracheids.

Therefore: Among the genus circumscribed in Part 1 (pine, spruce, pseutdotsuga, and larch), the radial view corresponds nearest to pine (the others have diagonally oblonged pits in the wood ray cross fields; pseudotsuga has tracheid walls spirally thickened cell walls, larch has normally two rays of bordered pits on the early wood tracheids). Only the genus pine (pinus) is left, a genus with many species today. As already Schubert stated, there is no complete correspondence between amber wood and the wood of any pine living today (there are no big window pits to be found in the cross fields such as with pinus silvestiris, and no jagged membrans in the transverse tracheids).
So the Baltic amber trees were an extinct species or species group of the genus pine, as Schubert says, or represent an extinct genus very closely related to pine. Even if the wood remains - so far recognizable - of Baltic and Bitterfeld amber seem totally similar, it cannot be excluded that several species related to each other are represented.

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Literature:
H. Conwentz, Monographie der Baltischen Bernsteinbäume, Leipzig 1890
A. Pielinska, Inclusions of wood in the amber collections of the Museum of the Earth in Warsaw. Metalla 66, Neue Erkenntnisse zum Bernstein, Sonderheft, Bochum 1997, 25-28
K. Schubert, Neue Untersuchungen über Bau und Leben der Bernsteinkiefern [Pinus succinifera (Conw.) emend.]. Beihefte zum Geologischen Jahrbuch 45, Hannover 1961
N. I. Turkin, Preliminary resutlts if microscopic research of tangential wood imprints in Baltic amber. Metalla (see above), Bochum 1997, 55-56
R. Wagenführ, Anatomie des Holzes, Dresden 1989

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Amber: A Perfect Fossil Trap
The Living World in Amber (1)
The Living World in Amber (2)
The Micro World Embalmed in Amber
"Atlas of Plants and Animals in Baltic Amber"
Amber Internet Links
The Amber Dictionary from A-F or G-Z