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.
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
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.
Hardwood
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
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
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
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
Okoumé
A light, soft, golden-tan Central African hardwood with fine even grain — the classic marine-plywood and core-veneer wood, low in weight and easy to peel.
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
Hemp Palm
The fibrous stem of the cold-hardy windmill palm — not a true wood but a monocot with bundled fibers set in soft tissue, light tan with a dark speckled fiber pattern.
Tropical & Exotic
Japanese Cedar
Japan's national tree and premier building softwood — light, straight-grained, aromatic sugi prized for its warm tone and easy working.
Softwood
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
Sweetgum
A moderately hard eastern North American hardwood with fine even grain — pale sapwood (sapgum) and reddish-brown heartwood (redgum) that takes stain and finish beautifully.
Hardwood
Chir Pine
A resinous Himalayan softwood, brown to reddish-brown, with visible growth rings and a strong pine scent — a workhorse construction and packing timber of northern India.
Softwood
Kauri
A golden, fine-grained New Zealand softwood — even-textured and stable, famed for huge clear boards and for ancient bog-buried 'swamp kauri'.
Softwood
Larch
A dense, resinous, weather-tough conifer with fine growth rings — the softwood of choice for outdoor cladding and where rot resistance matters.
Softwood
Cedar of Lebanon
Aromatic Mediterranean softwood from the fabled Cedar of Lebanon — light tan to warm brown, fine even grain, decay-resistant and famously fragrant.
Softwood
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
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.
Softwood
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
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
Sweet Cherry
The prized European cabinet cherry: fine tight-ringed grain and a silky surface that ripens from creamy tan to warm reddish-brown.
Hardwood
Australian Blackwood
Australia's premium acacia cabinet timber — golden to dark reddish-brown, often boldly figured, and a close cousin of Hawaiian koa.
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
Black Cherry
A prized eastern North American hardwood with silky straight grain that ages from pale pinkish-tan to a warm reddish-brown.
Hardwood