In an age of increasing surveillance and control of markets and trade flows, reliable methods for species and origin identification of commercial timbers and other woody plant products are required. In highly processed and mixed materials such as charcoal as well as wood-based materials or paper, DNA and chemical composition is degraded or altered, whereas the anatomical wood structure is often still completely or partially preserved. Hence, identification based on structural characteristics is the sole alternative. This paper reviews and compares the main methods of wood and charcoal identification based on wood anatomy. It summarizes the strengths and shortcomings of established traditional methods and highlights the progress made by new digital and AI-driven techniques, with a focus on developments of the past decade.
Haag et al. (Wed,) studied this question.