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.
Butternut
Pale honey-brown walnut relative — soft, light, easy to carve, and prized for its satiny sheen. Now scarce due to butternut canker.
Hardwood
Gray Mangrove
Dense, hard tidal hardwood from the world's most widespread mangrove — pale tan wood banded with the concentric rings typical of Avicennia's unusual growth.
Hardwood
Sugar Maple
Dense, pale North American hardwood prized for its hardness, tight even grain, and prized figure like bird's eye and curl.
Hardwood
Shorea
Broad Southeast Asian genus sold as meranti and lauan — a light tan, straight-grained tropical hardwood used for plywood, joinery, and utility furniture.
Tropical & Exotic
Grand Fir
A light, soft, pale Pacific Northwest true fir with fine even grain and low resin — an economical framing and utility softwood, mild-working but not decay-resistant.
Softwood
Birch Veneer
Thin, rotary-cut or sliced sheets of pale birch used as plywood faces and cabinet skins — light tan, straight-grained, and prized for its clean, even surface.
Hardwood
American Beech
A pale, dense, close-grained North American hardwood with tiny gleaming rays — tough, steam-bendable, and long the standard for utility furniture.
Hardwood
Mangrove Apple
A fine, dense, light-tan tropical mangrove hardwood — modest in size and rarely a commercial timber, used locally for tough, decay-prone service.
Tropical & Exotic
Meranti
Southeast Asian tropical hardwood from Shorea species — a mahogany-like utility wood, golden-orange to reddish-brown, widely used for plywood, joinery, and trim.
Tropical & Exotic
Indian Sandalwood
The famed fragrant heartwood of Santalum album: fine, close, warm golden-brown wood prized for carving and aromatic oil, and now strictly protected.
Tropical & Exotic
Whitebeam
A pale, fine-grained European hardwood from the Sorbus family — dense, hard, and even-textured, prized in small pieces for turning, tool parts, and precision work.
Hardwood
Silver Birch
Pale cream-white European hardwood with fine, even grain and clear growth rings; tough, plywood-grade, but low in decay resistance.
Hardwood
Quaking Aspen
A pale, lightweight North American hardwood — nearly white, fine and uniform in grain, soft and odorless, and the classic wood for saunas, matches, and pallets.
Hardwood
Birch
A pale, fine-grained northern hardwood — cream to white with warm tones, strong and even-textured, and the backbone of quality birch plywood.
Hardwood
European Beech
Pale, fine-textured European hardwood; hard, heavy, and the classic steam-bending timber for bentwood chairs, tool handles, and turnery.
Hardwood
Malabar Myrobalan
A dense, dark-brown Indian hardwood of the Terminalia group — the classic 'Indian Laurel' of cabinetwork, with golden tones and a moderate ribbon figure.
Tropical & Exotic
London Plane
A European hybrid plane whose quartersawn boards show the classic lacewood fleck — golden-tan, ray-flecked timber prized for decorative veneer and joinery.
Hardwood
Sweet Chestnut
A pale-tan, oak-like European hardwood — ring-porous, light, and naturally durable — long used for beams, fencing, coopering, and rustic furniture.
Hardwood
Swiss Stone Pine
Light, soft, aromatic Alpine softwood — the classic 'Zirbe' carving and paneling wood, pale cream to off-white with a lasting sweet resinous scent.
Softwood