Your job
![Trees are enormous solar powered production plants. Trees are enormous solar powered production plants.](../../unit9_selecting_timber/images/living_tree.jpg)
Trees are enormous solar powered production plants. As a rough average, for every one tonne of wood produced, a tree will take about 1000 tonnes of water from the soil and transport it through the roots, the stem, and up to the leaves.
Most of the characteristics of wood are formed in the growing tree. So before we look at the properties and features of wood as they appear in a piece of timber, we need to understand how the wood cells form and why certain characteristics develop in response to particular events that the tree experiences during its lifetime.
In this section, we'll examine the different parts of a tree and the functions they perform in helping the tree to grow and develop new wood cells. We'll also discuss the parts of the stem that are used in commercial timber production.
![Your job icon](../../shared/images/css_images/your_job_testicon.jpg)
Here's your job
- Have a look at the Task for this section to preview the questions you'll need to answer at the end.
- Work through each of the lessons for more detailed information on the concepts covered, and complete the learning activity at the end of each topic.
- Complete the Task. You can hear Matt's answers to these questions by going to the case study.
You'll find all of the links in the menu bar at left.