Many kinds of durable wood species for outdoor uses has been imported from all over the world to Japan. However information on the natural durability of these species is not sufficient to estimate the service life of them in the climate of Japan. Highly durable species such as Jarrh, Teak, Ipe, Ekki, Selangan batu, Red wood, Western red cedar showed no significant percent mass losses by accelerated decay test according to the JIS Z2101, but some of them are degraded during fungal cellar test for 4 years . The decay rating (0:sound to 5:totally decayed) of them after 4 years exposure was 1.0, 2.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 2.3, 5.0 respectively. This results indicated that the conventional accelerated decay test could not evaluate the natural durability of these highly durable species at all. Solid wood specimens treated with boiling water at 120? for one hour are subjected to the same JIS test, and the obtained percent mass losses of these species are 1.2, 2.9, 1.9, 3.8, 4.7, 17.5, 0.0 % by a brown rot fungus, Fomitopsis palustris, and 17.5, 14.3, 3.3, 8.2, 4.2, 0.0, 18.3 % by a white rot fungus, Trametes versicolor respectively. Pre-treatment of solid wood specimens for removal of heartwood extractives before a accelerated decay test would be an effective way to evaluate the natural durability of highly durable species in a laboratory.

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