The application of confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) in the studies of biological materials is rapidly expanding because of the opportunity to produce sharp, high resolution images through optical sectioning and computer assisted 3-D reconstruction. At our institute CLSM is being used in a wide range of forestry and wood science studies.

Recently we investigated the potential usefulness of CLSM in characterizing biologically degraded wood. The following are images produced from an archaeological wood which has been buried in a wet environment (rice field) for nearly 2,000 years in South Korea and is apparently degraded by bacteria. In an attempt to develop suitable techniques which can be used for routine examination of fragile degraded wood with CLSM, we have compared two different embedding methods for their suitability in preserving the integrity of cells. The embedding media are paraffin wax and LR White resin.