As a celebration of the prolific scientific life and achievements of Sherwin Carlquist, arguably the most influential wood anatomist of all time, the IAWA Journal published a special edition with 19 articles covering a broad range of themes that Carlquist dedicated most of his career to. Edited by Carlquist’s former student Mark E. Olson, and Marcelo R. Pace, these articles aimed to re-examine and shed light on the strengths, weaknesses, and controversies of key functional wood anatomical structures that Carlquist hypothesized as important in his research. All articles are Open Access and already available to download on website of IAWA Journal: http://www.brill.com/view/journals/iawa/iawa-overview.xml.