Wood Encyclopedia
Search and identify wood species from around the world — with origin, Janka hardness, grain and color, working properties, common uses, and how to tell them apart.
Rowan
A tough, fine-textured European turning and carving wood from the rowan tree — pale tan sapwood, warm brown heart, and centuries of folklore.
Hardwood
Schima
A medium-hard, light-tan-to-brown Asian hardwood from the needlewood tree (Schima wallichii), used for construction, furniture, and plywood — but with irritant bark and dust.
Hardwood
Rhododendron
A dense, fine-grained pale hardwood from shrubby East Asian rhododendrons — compact rings, light tan to gold color, and a turner's favorite for small work.
Hardwood
Bahera
A moderately hard, fine-grained reddish-brown to tan Asian hardwood from the bahera (beleric myrobalan) tree, used for utility joinery, plywood, and packing.
Tropical & Exotic
Linden
A pale, feather-light hardwood with fine straight grain and almost no figure — the traditional wood of European carvers and a top choice for detailed relief work.
Hardwood
Petrified Wood
Fossilized wood turned to stone — original tree grain and growth rings preserved in silica. A mineral, not a workable timber.
Reclaimed
Cherry Laurel
A minor Prunus wood from an evergreen Mediterranean shrub-tree, cutting fine, even, pale-tan stock with visible growth rings.
Hardwood
Hop Hornbeam
A dense, pale, extremely hard European hardwood — fine, even-grained 'ironwood' from a small understory tree, prized for tough turnery and handles.
Hardwood
Common Hook-thorn Acacia
A dense southern-African thorn tree yielding dark reddish-brown heartwood with cream sapwood — a hard, tough, mostly local-use timber.
Hardwood
Olive
The dense, richly streaked wood of the olive tree: pale tan and cream shot through with darker brown heartwood, prized by turners for its dramatic figure.
Hardwood
White Mulberry
A tough, golden-hued fruit-tree hardwood prized by turners and carvers for its ripple figure, though sawn samples often read pale cream to light tan.
Hardwood
Great Basin Bristlecone Pine
Wood of the world's oldest trees — a dense, resinous, extremely slow-grown high-desert pine with tight rings and twisted grain, golden tan in color.
Softwood
Fig
The soft, pale, lightweight wood of the common fig tree — an orchard hardwood rarely milled for lumber, valued mainly for small turnery and carving.
Hardwood
Japanese Cedar
Japan's national tree and premier building softwood — light, straight-grained, aromatic sugi prized for its warm tone and easy working.
Softwood
Lodgepole Pine
A pale, lightweight, straight-boled Rocky Mountain softwood — the classic tepee-pole tree — valued for framing lumber, house logs, and utility products.
Softwood
Crape Myrtle
A dense, fine-grained ornamental hardwood cut from the crape myrtle shrub-tree; pale cream to tan with tightly spaced rings and a smooth, uniform texture.
Hardwood
Japanese Apricot
A dense, fine-grained East Asian fruitwood from the ume tree, prized in small pieces for its honey-tan color and tight, slow-grown rings.
Hardwood
Cedar of Lebanon
Aromatic Mediterranean softwood from the fabled Cedar of Lebanon — light tan to warm brown, fine even grain, decay-resistant and famously fragrant.
Softwood
Shagbark Hickory
A pale, exceptionally hard and shock-resistant North American hardwood — the classic tough wood for tool handles, ladder rungs, and flooring.
Hardwood
Deodar Cedar
An aromatic Himalayan true cedar with fine even grain, light tan to yellowish-brown color, and good natural decay resistance — a classic building and joinery softwood.
Softwood
Red Mangrove
A dense, fine-grained tropical mangrove hardwood of the Caribbean and Central America — slow-grown in tidal mud and prized locally for pilings, poles, tannin, and charcoal.
Tropical & Exotic
Ebony
Dense, jet-black tropical hardwood with an extremely fine, poreless grain, prized for instrument parts, fine turning, and inlay.
Tropical & Exotic
Genuine Mahogany
The classic cabinet wood: a medium-density tropical American hardwood, reddish-brown with an even grain, prized for stability, workability, and CITES protection.
Tropical & Exotic
Bamboo
A fast-growing woody grass — not a true wood — used as round culms and glued into hard, dimensionally stable engineered boards and flooring.
Bamboo