Wood and bark phytoliths of West African woody plants

Long-term wood anatomical research has shown that 10% of the world's trees and shrubs produce silica in their wood, but silica production in bark had never been systematically investigated. We present here the results of the first comprehensive study on phytoliths in bark and compare them with data on wood phytoliths. We studied 103 bark samples from 92 species and 35 wood samples from 31 species mainly distributed in the West African savannas,...