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.

All Hardwood Softwood Tropical & Exotic Engineered Bamboo Reclaimed

Stone Pine

The pale, resinous Mediterranean softwood of the umbrella pine — clear concentric rings, straight grain, and light tan color, better known for its pine nuts than its timber.

Boxwood

Exceptionally dense, fine-grained European hardwood in pale cream-yellow, prized for engraving, turning, carving, and instrument fittings.

Birdseye Maple

Figured hard maple dotted with tiny circular 'eyes' — a light, pale-golden North American hardwood prized for showpiece work.

Red Alder

The Pacific Northwest's workhorse softwood-of-a-hardwood: pale, even-textured, and famous for the warm orange blush it takes on when freshly cut.

Black Cherry

A prized eastern North American hardwood with silky straight grain that ages from pale pinkish-tan to a warm reddish-brown.

Softwood Plywood

Softwood Plywood

Cross-laminated conifer veneers bonded into stable structural sheets — the pale, workaday plywood behind subfloors, sheathing, roofs and rough carpentry.

Yellow Birch

A tough, fine-grained North American hardwood — pale to golden-brown, strong and shock-resistant, and the primary birch of furniture, flooring, and plywood.

Eastern Red Cedar

Eastern Red Cedar

A fragrant North American juniper — reddish-purple heartwood against pale sapwood, famous for moth-repelling cedar chests and closet linings.

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.

Honey Locust

A hard, dense, ring-porous North American hardwood with warm reddish-brown heartwood, pale golden sapwood, and surprising decay resistance.

Hawthorn

A very hard, dense pale European hedgerow hardwood with a fine even grain, prized in small sizes for turning, tool handles and engraving.

Sugar Maple

Dense, pale North American hardwood prized for its hardness, tight even grain, and prized figure like bird's eye and curl.

White Poplar

A pale, lightweight European hardwood of the poplar family — soft, fine-textured, and odorless, long used for boxes, plywood core, and utility work.

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.

Rowan

A tough, fine-textured European turning and carving wood from the rowan tree — pale tan sapwood, warm brown heart, and centuries of folklore.

Eastern White Pine

Eastern White Pine

The classic soft, lightweight, pale North American pine: fine even grain, distinct growth rings, and a wood that carves, planes, and paints with ease.

Lodgepole Pine

A pale, lightweight, straight-boled Rocky Mountain softwood — the classic tepee-pole tree — valued for framing lumber, house logs, and utility products.

European Hornbeam

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.

Peach

A dense, fine-grained orchard fruitwood from the peach tree, showing light tan to pale brown tones and tight concentric growth rings.

Blackbutt

A dense, pale golden-brown Australian eucalypt hardwood with fine even grain — a workhorse structural, flooring, and decking timber prized for strength and bushfire resistance.

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.

Norway Maple

A pale, fine-grained European maple with even diffuse-porous texture and a clean cream-tan color — a good-turning, easily finished utility hardwood.

Pin Oak

A ring-porous red-oak-group hardwood — pale tan with reddish undertones, coarse open grain and bold rays, sold and worked as red oak.

Oriented Strand Board (OSB)

Oriented Strand Board (OSB)

An engineered structural panel of cross-oriented wood strands bonded with resin under heat and pressure — the pale, mottled tan sheathing board of modern construction.