In article ,
"P van Rijckevorsel" wrote:
Once upon a time Phred wrote:

G'day mates,

There was recently a request in sci.bio.botany for info on tropical
hardwoods. As the Australian State of Queensland has (or had) an
active Forestry research group (now embedded in the Qld Dept of
Primary Industries), I thought it might be useful to have a squiz at
the DPI home page http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/home/default.html.

Of course, this was somewhat optimistic of me given the modern drive
from science and extension to bureaucracy in DPI, but there was some
stuff there that might be of interest under the "Forestry, timber and
wood" link http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/forestry/.

Mostly advertising books and other saleable items rather than
providing on-line info, and largely aimed at plantation species.
Three of the four "Contents" links are somewhat repetitive, but each
probably does include some items not listed elsewhere.

One of the more unusual items under the "Timber and Uses" link
http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/thematiclists/2722.html is a group of up
to 100 timber samples available for purchase either singly or as boxed
sets http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/qfri/9513.html.

[...]
+ + +
Since the time of writing this sale of timber samples has been discontinued.
Perhaps as part of "the modern drive ... to bureacracy in DPI" ?

I'll see what I can find out, though I would guess at two
likely possibilities:

1. They're sold out and there's no "project finance" to do a re-run.

2. World Heritage listing of the NQ rainforests has meant a dramatic
decline in availability of pretty well all cabinet woods and a
consequent dramatic rise in prices. The only stocks of most of these
species now come from the relatively small areas of rainforest on
freehold land. Given that they're effectively no longer available to
commerce, there's not much point in providing samples.




Cheers, Phred.

--
LID