Dr. Hiromi Shibui of Hokkaido University received the I.W. Bailey Award 2017, and a prize of 1,000 EUR was awarded. The award ceremony and the lecture were held prior to the research meeting of wood anatomy and wood properties at the 68th Japan Wood Society meeting on March 16, 2018. Dr. Shibui received the certificate from Dr. Hisashi Abe, IAWA Deputy Executive Secretary. The winning paper, "Hiromi Shibui & Yuzou Sano: Structure and formation of phellem of Betula maximowicziana", IAWA Journal 39-1 (2018) 18–36; DOI 10.1163 /22941932-20170186, analyzed seasonal development of phellem, and clearly showed that the annual increment of phellem in Betula was composed of a thin-walled cell layer and a thicker layer of thick-walled cells.