Featured on PDR in the collection The American Woods

Below is a selection of pages from Romeyn Beck Hough's unique fourteen volume work The American Woods, a collection of more than 1000 paper-thin wood samples representing more than 350 varieties of North American tree. Between 1888 and 1913, Hough published a total of thirteen volumes of the work, but died in 1923 before being able to fulfil his epic fifteen volume plan. However, a final fourteenth volume was published in 1928 using his samples and field notes compiled by his daughter. Each specimen page of the work is dedicated to a single tree and consists of a cardboard plate into which three translucent slices have been placed, three variations of cross-section — transverse, radial, and tangential. The wafer-thin slivers — which would glow like…