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.
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
Downy Oak
A dense, pale-gold Central European white oak with fine, distinct annual rings and broad rays — tough, durable, and closely related to English oak.
Hardwood
Petrified Wood
Fossilized wood turned to stone — original tree grain and growth rings preserved in silica. A mineral, not a workable timber.
Reclaimed
Poplar Burl
Highly figured burl cut from European poplar — a soft, light hardwood prized for its swirling eyes and warm golden-orange, dark-pored face.
Hardwood
Cocobolo
A dense, oily Central American rosewood prized for vivid reddish-orange heartwood streaked with dark accents — a CITES-listed knife-handle and turning wood.
Tropical & Exotic
Mango Wood
A golden-brown tropical hardwood reclaimed from spent fruit orchards — light-tan with dark streaks, often figured, prized as a sustainable furniture wood.
Tropical & Exotic
Pau d'arco
Extremely dense, reddish- to orange-brown South American hardwood — the classic ipe/lapacho decking and outdoor timber, prized for hardness and rot resistance.
Tropical & Exotic
Goncalo Alves
The bold striped tropical hardwood sold as Tigerwood: hard, heavy, and durable, prized for its dramatic dark chocolate streaks over a reddish-orange-brown ground.
Tropical & Exotic
Beech Fossil Wood
Fossilized (petrified) beech — the original Fagus wood turned to stone yet still showing cream, tan, red, and brown growth rings. A collector specimen, not workable lumber.
Hardwood
Colorado Blue Spruce
A pale, lightweight Rocky Mountain softwood with fine, even growth rings — an ornamental spruce whose creamy, straight-grained wood is used mainly for utility lumber and paper.
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
Peach
A dense, fine-grained orchard fruitwood from the peach tree, showing light tan to pale brown tones and tight concentric growth rings.
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
Engineered Wood
A broad family of manufactured boards built from wood fibers, particles, or veneers bonded with adhesives — uniform, stable, and free of a single natural species.
Engineered
African Padauk
The brilliant orange-red African hardwood: hard, heavy, and durable, prized for its vivid vermillion color, medium interlocked grain, and easy working.
Tropical & Exotic
Ponderosa Pine
A soft, light Western softwood — pale yellow sapwood and warm orange-tan heartwood, straight-grained, easy to work, and the classic knotty-pine millwork timber.
Softwood
Padauk
Dense, durable Southeast Asian hardwood famous for vivid orange-red heartwood that ages to a deep purple-maroon, prized for furniture, flooring and turning.
Tropical & Exotic
Golden Chain Tree
Dense, hard European ornamental hardwood prized for its rich color contrast and used in turning, inlay, and woodwind instruments — but every part is poisonous.
Hardwood
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
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