Romeyn Beck Hough

[1] Hough developed a specialized veneer cutter capable of slicing wood to a thickness of 1⁄1200 inch (0.021 mm).

[2][3] After seeing German botanist Herman von Nördlinger's volumes of European tree cross-sections, Hough was inspired to make his own representing "all of the American woods, or at least the most important".

[4][5] To each tree he dedicated a cardboard plate which contained three slices—transverse, radial, and tangential—of the wood, accompanied by information about its botany, habitat and medicinal and commercial uses.

[2] Hough had originally planned to publish fifteen volumes, which would include samples of all of the important trees found in North America, but he died in 1924 before the full set was completed.

[4] In 2002, it was republished by Taschen under the title The Woodbook, compiled by Klaus Ulrich Leistikow including a selection of lithographs of some trees' leaves and berries by Charles Sprague Sargent.

c. 1916 photograph of Romeyn Beck Hough displaying sections from American Woods . Behind are magic lantern slides.
Sugar maple from The American Woods containing (from top to bottom) transverse, radial and tangential sections. The image on the right shows light passing through the specimen, which allows examination of fine structures with a microscope.
Quercus rubra from The American Woods