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
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
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
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