A database and interactive identification key for the anatomy of woods of the Ethiopian Afromontane Forest

Abstract

Summary Identifying wood and wood charcoal from sub-tropical to tropical regions is challenging, due to the high floristic diversity. This is especially true for the Horn of Africa, characterized by a high degree of endemism, for which no wood anatomy atlas is available. Yet, there is a strong need for anatomical descriptions and identification tools, in particular concerning archaeobotanical research. Numerous rock shelters in the Ethiopian highlands provide rich charcoal assemblages. Their study is of utmost interest to decipher past human-vegetation relationships. Many of these sites are located in the Afromontane Forest, the potential natural vegetation of the highlands within the Eastern Afromontane biodiversity hotspot, hosting 483 dicot woody species. Here, we present the first wood database for the species of the Ethiopian Afromontane Forest. It is set up on the online open-access platform Xper3 and includes an interactive identification key. The anatomical features follow the IAWA nomenclature and include additional ones, to improve the identification process. The database comprises wood anatomical descriptions of (1) 68 species from the wood reference collections of Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, and Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany; (2) 72 species from InsideWood and (3) 92 genera/species from specialized literature. The database also includes original pictures taken on samples from the reference collections. Our original coded descriptions and pictures are also available in InsideWood.