Abstract:Variance analysis on 33 indices of anatomical, chemical, physical and mechanical properties of juvenile vs. mature wood of 10 species from plantation and 4 species from natural forest and plantation vs. natural forest of 4 species in China shows there is significance of differences between juvenile and mature wood in most species. Compared to mature wood, the growth ring width of juvenile wood is wider, the tracheid row is more, the length of tracheid is shorten, the diameter of tracheid is smaller, the microfibrillar angle is bigger, the wood density is smaller, the radial shrinkage is smaller, the ratio of tangential to radial shrinkage is bigger, the moisture diffusion coefficient is higher, the bending strength, elastic modulus of bending strength, compressive strength parallel to the grain, radial shearing strength parallel to the grain, radial cleavage resistance and toughness are smaller, and above 15 indices (46%) have significant difference in statistics. This indicates that the juvenile wood and mature wood should be considered as 2 series with different properties in processing and using as structural material, and how to shorten the juvenile period and improve the properties of juvenile wood should be taken into account in cultivating forest for structural material. In order to compare the variance of wood from plantation vs. natural forest, the juvenile wood from plantation vs. that from natural forest,the mature wood from plantation vs. that from natural forest have been compared. Variance analysis on wood properties of plantation vs. natural forest of 4 species shows that there is no significance of difference between them in most properties except the following 4 properties (12%): compressive strength parallel to the grain of plantation is lower, ratio of trangential to radial shrinkage of plantation is bigger, moisture diffusion coefficient of plantation is higher, and cell wall ratio of plantation is smaller than those of natural one. This suggests that it is possible to cultivate wood with property similar to those of the wood from natural forest.