Abstract: Variations in internode diameter and length, fibre morphology and specific gravity of four rattans, i.e. Daemonorops margaritae, Calamus simplicifolius, C. tetradactylus and C. dioicus were analysed. In axial direction, the variation in internode diameter was very small. The fluctuation in internode length was relatively gentle. The fibre length has no definite variation pattern. The specific gravites of both bark and core show a decreasing trend from bottom to top. It seems that fibre length in the bark is longer than that in the core, but only that of C. dioicus reaches the statistical signlficance(p<0.05). Specific gravity of the bark is markedly larger than that of the core. In axial and radial dirction, both the width and the lumen diameter of fibre show an increasing trend from the periphery to the centre and from bottom to top while the wall thickness rate (2 × wall thickness ×100/width) exhibits a contrary trend. The qualities of the four rattans were also evaluated in this paper preliminarily.

Key words: Rattan cane, Internode diameter, Internode length, Fibre morphology, Specific gravity, Variation