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.
Mangrove
A very dense, hard tropical wood from the Southeast Asian stilt-root mangrove — tan to light brown, fine and heavy, famed as charcoal and marine poles.
Tropical & Exotic
Black Mangrove
A dense, hard mangrove hardwood from tropical tidal coasts — pale tan with darker growth rings; heavy and durable but small, twisted, and rarely milled into lumber.
Hardwood
Nux Vomica
A hard, dense, close-grained brown hardwood from the South Asian strychnine tree, whose bitter alkaloid-laden timber is used for tool handles, implements, and turnery.
Tropical & Exotic
Tropical/Exotic Hardwood
A general category for dense tropical hardwoods; this sample shows pale tan-to-cream heartwood with a distinct dark bark layer and clear growth structure.
Tropical & Exotic
European Hardwood (Unknown)
An unidentified temperate hardwood sampled in the Czech Republic, showing reddish-brown heartwood, a darker outer ring, and clear medium-spaced growth rings.
Hardwood
Stained or Treated Hardwood
Not a single species but any hardwood whose natural color has been altered by stain, dye, or a preservative or protective treatment.
Hardwood
Catalpa
A lightweight, unusually decay-resistant native hardwood with coarse ring-porous grain and a warm tan-to-gray-brown color.
Hardwood
Nigerian Hardwood (possibly Direm)
A cream-to-warm-tan West African hardwood from Nigeria, tentatively identified as Direm, with prominent rays and reddish-brown vessel highlights.
Hardwood
Unknown Specimen (c00750)
An unidentified medium-to-dark brown hardwood specimen with moderate grain; documented from a real sample but not matched to a confirmed species.
Hardwood
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
Pyrenean Oak
A warm golden-toned Iberian white oak with prominent ring-porous grain and bold ray fleck — a hardy, medium-dense European oak used for furniture, flooring, and cooperage.
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
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.
Hardwood
Oriental Plane
A golden-brown Mediterranean hardwood famous for its dazzling ray fleck — the classic 'lacewood' figure on the quartered face.
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
English Walnut
European hardwood prized for warm brown heartwood and superb figure; the classic gunstock, furniture and veneer walnut.
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
Lignum Vitae
A dense, oily, self-lubricating South American hardwood with bold light-and-dark striping — the tough, waxy stand-in traded as lignum vitae.
Tropical & Exotic
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
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
Tree of Heaven
Pale cream-to-tan ring-porous hardwood from a fast-growing invasive tree — ash-like grain, light, satiny, and essentially free where it grows.
Hardwood
Jack Wood
Heavy, tough South/Southeast Asian hardwood in warm tan to light brown, valued for its strength, durability and heavy structural and joinery work.
Hardwood
Red Oak
The workhorse of American hardwoods — a strong, ring-porous, coarse-grained oak with bold rays, a reddish cast, and open pores you can see with the naked eye.
Hardwood
African Ebony
Dense, jet-black West African hardwood with an extremely fine grain, prized for instrument parts, inlay, and fine turning.
Tropical & Exotic