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.
Bulletwood
Extremely dense, durable reddish-brown South American hardwood with fine, uniform grain, prized for heavy construction, decking, and turning.
Tropical & Exotic
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
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
Cannonball Mangrove
A mahogany-family mangrove hardwood from Indo-Pacific tidal forests — pale tan sapwood, warm brown heartwood, and moderate, evenly spaced growth rings.
Tropical & Exotic
Paulownia
An exceptionally light, soft, pale hardwood from the fast-growing kiri tree — prized in Asia for chests, clogs, and instrument parts for its low weight and stability.
Hardwood
Nux Vomica
A hard, dense, close-grained brown hardwood from the South Asian strychnine tree, whose bitter alkaloid-laden timber is used for tool handles, implements, and turnery.
Tropical & Exotic
Sugar Maple
Dense, pale North American hardwood prized for its hardness, tight even grain, and prized figure like bird's eye and curl.
Hardwood
Mansonia
A fine, even-grained West African hardwood often sold as a walnut substitute — attractive but notorious for its highly irritating dust.
Hardwood
Rosemary
The tight, dense, aromatic wood of the rosemary shrub — pale tan to light brown, very fine-grained, and available only in small twig- and root-sized pieces for craft work.
Hardwood
White Spruce
A light, pale, straight-grained North American softwood — the classic clean, low-resin utility conifer prized for its strength-to-weight ratio and pale even face.
Softwood
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
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
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
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
Japanese Cedar
Japan's national tree and premier building softwood — light, straight-grained, aromatic sugi prized for its warm tone and easy working.
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
Brazilian Cedar
The aromatic 'cedar' of cigar boxes and guitar necks — a light, soft, spicy-scented tropical wood that is botanically a mahogany relative, not a true cedar.
Softwood
Black Alder
A pale tan-cream, light and soft European hardwood with even growth rings — easy to work, quick to turn and carve, and long the wood of choice under water.
Hardwood
Red Oak
The workhorse of American hardwoods — a strong, ring-porous, coarse-grained oak with bold rays, a reddish cast, and open pores you can see with the naked eye.
Hardwood