Recent Advances in the Study of Heartwood Formation

Heartwood formation is an important feature both for the life of trees and for wood utilization by humans. It is unique to trees and can never be observed in herbaceous plants. The author reviews recent advances in the field of heartwood formation, which were achieved mainly in the first half of the 2010s, based on a lecture by the author in a symposium "Dynamics of Heartwood Substance", held at Nagoya in March 2016. It was jointly organized by the Research Groups on Wood Anatomy and Wood Properties, and on Extractive Utilization, of the Japan Wood Research Society. Recent progress in the study of heartwood formation has been remarkable while the number of published papers was not large. It can be expected that the field will develop rapidly in the near future by the application of novel approaches with innovative ideas.