Please see the following press release for information on a new web-based wood and charcoal identification tool.
 
Sara Rivers Cofield
Curator of Federal Collections
Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory
 
New Website on Wood and Charcoal Identification Premieres
 
Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum is pleased to announce the creation of a new website on wood and wood charcoal identification.   Funded by a grant from the National Park Service Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network, this online resource (http://www.jefpat.org/Wood & Charcoal Identification/Wood and Charcoal ID Introduction.htm) will be an invaluable resource for archaeologists and paleobotanists.  This new initiative by the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory is part of its continuing efforts to create accessible identification tools and resource materials for archaeologists, curators, students, and anyone interested in Maryland and Mid-Atlantic history.
 
This website project was headed by Dr. Harry Alden, a botanist and world-recognized expert in the microscopic identification of plant materials.  Alden created a type collection of unburnt wood and charcoal samples for trees and woody shrubs found in the Northern Chesapeake region.  Using this collection, which is housed at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, he created online wood and charcoal identification tools for twenty-five of the most commonly occurring trees and shrubs in the Northern Chesapeake.  High resolution photographs of magnified thin sections of wood and charcoal have been labeled to show key characteristics of cellular structure useful in identification.  The webpage also contains a section on wood and charcoal identification basics, a glossary, and a bibliography, as well as links to other websites containing additional information
 
This website will become available in early March 2009.