The Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera
tigris tigris Linn.) is an endemic subspecies
in the Indian Sub-continent. Only a
few decades ago it had a wider range of
distribution throughout this region. But
due to steady reduction of the forest area
and ruthless killing, this animal is steadily
disappearing from its previous range. Now
it is confined to the Sundarbans only, where
a good population of tiger is still available.
The tiger plays an important role in
the ecosystem of the mangrove forests. It
occupies the top stratum in the food chain.
It mainly feeds on deer population which
in turn have a great influence on the
regeneration of different plant species.
Moreover, the tiger acts as a guard to protect
the forests from illicit felling and has the
potentiality of attracting local and foreign
tourists.

Among pole species in Bangladesh
Sundri is the most favoured one because
of its very good strength properties and
abundant availability. These facts have
prompted the Bangladesh Power
Development Board and the Bangladesh
Rural Electrification Board to show a keen
interest in using Sundri poles in power
transmission line in Bangladesh.
Sundri pole comes of a stem of Sundri
which occurs as a small to medium sized
evergreen tree with a grooved and buttressed
stem and
It grows
region
characteristic pneumatophores,
gregariously in the deltaic
of Bangladesh where it occurs
throughout the tidal forests. It is estimated
that the Sundarban forests could provide
more than 50,000 Sundri poles annually in
perpetual yield. (Latif 1965 ).

Teak has always been the principal
species in the plantation programmes of
Bangladesh. More than 70% of total plantation in the hill forests is composed
of Teak (Andersen 1969, Slavicky 1978,
White 1979).

Fibre dimension indicates the suitability
of a vegetable fibrous raw material for
making pulp. About 600 species of hardwoods,
about 20 species of bamboos and
a few species of grass are available in the
forests of Bangladesh. Of these, 40 woods, 13
bamboos, 6 grasses and 10 miscellaneous
fibrous materials are reported in this
review. None of these species can alone
feed any paper mill except Gewa wood
which is exclusively used for newsprint
pulp at Khulna Newsprint Mills. Karnaphuli
Paper and Rayon Mills are utilising
a few bamboo species along with other hardwoods. Grasses like Nal, Khagra &
Ekrah are partly used in Sylhet Pulp Mills.
Most of the wood, bamboo and grass
species are found scattared all over the
forests of Chittagong, Chittagong Hill Tracts
and Sylhet. Due to inaccessibility into
forest and heavy cost of felling and transportation,
few of these species can be used
economically as pulping raw material.
However, this report will be useful to pulp,
paper and board industries in finding out
alternative species to the present source of
raw materials.

The gluing characteristics of many of
the indigenous timber species of Bangladesh
are not known. Adequate knowledge of
the gluing characteristics is essential for
optimum utilization of the timber resources
by the repsective industries like plywood
and laminated wood. It is established a
fact that gluability is a function of density
of wood, its structure, presence of extraneous
materials, etc. The study was undertaken
in finding out the gluability of Champa
veneer in the manufacture of plywood. Champa (Michelia champaca) a large
tree with a long straight cylindrical bole of
18 to 21 m in length and often of large
girth, is found in the Chittagong Hill
Tracts forests of Bangladesh. It is light,
(sp. gr. approx. 0.53), soft, straight grained,
even and medium textured. Its sapwood is
white, and the heartwood is light yellowish
brown to olive-brown, somewhat lustrous,
smooth working and takes good polish.
It weighs 497 to 546 kg/m3 at 12 percent
moisture content. The timber dries well

To the taxonomist, bamboos pose
special difficulties in identification. Rarity
of flowering frequency is one of them.
Suppressed vegetative activity during flowering
in some species usually results in the
death of the plant. Holttum ( 1958) and
McClure ( 1966), therefore, emphasised the
use of all vegetative parts for identifying
and classifying bamboos. Melocalamus Benth. is represented by
M. compactiflorus ( Kurz) Benth. and occur
in Burma, Bangladesh, India and IndoChina.
The genus is characterized by its
two flowered spikelets and relatively large
fruit. Even though the genus was established
much earlier (Bentham 1881, Bentham
1883 ), little is known about its vegetative
and floral morphology and fruit structure.
Diagnostic value of different vegetative and
floral characters and the details of the
fruit have been studied in this work which
has not been done before.

Keora (Sonneratia apetala, Ham) is a
moderate sized tree growing in the mangrove
forests, especially in the Sunderbans
and similar other localities of Bangladesh.
The wood is moderately hard with grey
sapwood and light reddish-brown heartwood,
suitable for making boat, packing
case and rough furniture (Pearson and
Brown 1932). Because of its rapid growth,
it is regarded as an important mangrove
species for coastal afforestation. In order
to explore its new applications in woodbased
industries of the country, a
preliminary study was made in the Forest
Research Institute to investigate into its
suitability for hardboard making

Micrococca mercurialis ( Linn. ) Benth.
(Euphorbiaceae) cited as Cal oxy Ion mercurialis
Thwaites by Hooker ( 1887) was reported
by the same author as occurring at Mongir
of Behar, the Deccan Peninsula, Burma
and Ceylon. It is distributed in Arabia
and tropical Africa. Prain ( 1903) reported
it from Behar. This species has recently
been collected from Chittagong district.
In the various floristic works by Heining
( 1925 ), Raizada ( 1941 ), Datta and Mitra
( 1953), Sinclair ( 1955) and Khan and
Banu ( 1972) the species has not been
recorded from the region now under
Bangladesh.

Cultivation of oilpalm in Bangladesh
started in 1979. Six hundred hectares of
plantations have already been raised in
Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar and Sylhet forest
divisions on hilly land.
Oilpalms are best grown in many
countries located between 0° to 10° latitudes
(Hartley 1977). Bangladesh lies between
21°25′ to 26°38′ N latitudes. Therefore,
before undertaking ventures of large scale
plantation of oilpalm in Bangladesh, due consideration should be given on her climatic
and soil suitability aspects.

Gamar is a fast growing hardwood
species native to Bangladesh, India, Burma
and other parts of South East Asia. It
grows in a variety of sites but is at its
best in well drained soil. Gamar is already
a potentially important plantation species
in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Malaysia and
Brazil (Gibson 1975). It produces white
durable timber with good working properties
and has good pulping characteristics. In Bangladesh, since 1974, Gamar has
been planted on a 14 years’ rotation in
about 1.4 thousand hectares in the Pulp
Wood Plantation Division, Kaptai. The
future plan is to increase the plantation
over a larger area. Its primary object is