Abstract

Two dominant and 2 suppressed trees were randomly selected from a 1929 plantation at Karulai (Nilambur), Kerala, during the final felling in Sep. 1983. Approx. 6-cm thick transverse discs were removed from the butt end, middle and top of the stems ofeach. Sample blocks of 10 rings were also removed from the pith outwards in 8 different cardinal directions. Relative density (on an oven-dry wt. to green vol. basis) was estimated for a total of 224 samples. Ht. of dominant trees was 25. 5 and 28. 3 m, and of suppressed trees 18. 5 and 17. 0 mrespective values for diam. o.b. at butt end were 47. 5 and 45. 0 cm, and 21. 1 and 23. 0 cm. Mean relative density for dominant trees was 0. 667 and for suppressed trees 0. 571the difference was highly significant. Total variation was only 8. 8 among samples from dominant trees and 12. 6 for suppressed trees