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.
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
Japanese Cedar
Japan's national tree and premier building softwood — light, straight-grained, aromatic sugi prized for its warm tone and easy working.
Softwood
European Maple
Pale, lustrous European hardwood prized for curly and burl figure; the classic tonewood for violin backs and fine turnery.
Hardwood
Ziricote
A dense Central American hardwood famous for dramatic "spider-web" figure — grayish to medium brown with fine black streaking and high natural luster.
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
Wenge
Dark brown-to-black Central African hardwood with a bold black-and-tan striped figure, coarse texture, and high density — a favorite for flooring and accents.
Tropical & Exotic
Butternut
Pale honey-brown walnut relative — soft, light, easy to carve, and prized for its satiny sheen. Now scarce due to butternut canker.
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
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
Conifer (unidentified)
A pale, straight-grained North American softwood cut from an unidentified conifer — light tan to pale yellow, light in weight, and easy to work.
Softwood
Abachi
A very light, soft, pale West African hardwood with fine even grain — the classic sauna-bench and core-veneer wood, low in weight, heat, and resin.
Tropical & Exotic
Paper Birch
A pale, fine-grained North American hardwood famous for its white peeling bark; tough, even, and easy to work but not decay-resistant.
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
Arborvitae
A very light, soft, aromatic softwood — better known as Northern White Cedar — prized for rot resistance in shingles, posts, and canoe ribs.
Softwood
Sugar Maple
Dense, pale North American hardwood prized for its hardness, tight even grain, and prized figure like bird's eye and curl.
Hardwood
Silver Fir
A pale, lightweight European softwood — creamy, fine, even grained and resin-canal free — long sold with spruce as generic 'whitewood' for building and joinery.
Softwood
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
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
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
European Hornbeam
A pale, exceptionally hard and heavy European hardwood with fine, even grain — the classic wood for mallet heads, gears, tool handles, and piano actions.
Hardwood
Hawthorn
A very hard, dense pale European hedgerow hardwood with a fine even grain, prized in small sizes for turning, tool handles and engraving.
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
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
Spruce
A light, soft, pale cream-to-tan European softwood with fine even grain — strong for its weight, easy to work, and the classic tonewood for instrument soundboards.
Softwood