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.
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
Goupia
A dense, durable golden-brown to olive hardwood of the northern Amazon, prized for heavy exterior construction, decking, and marine work.
Hardwood
Zhennan Wood
A fragrant, golden-amber Asian laurel-family wood — the fabled 'nanmu' of Chinese imperial furniture, prized for its silky sheen and shimmering figure.
Tropical & Exotic
Koa
Endemic Hawaiian hardwood prized for its golden-to-reddish-brown color and shimmering chatoyant curly figure — the signature wood of the islands.
Hardwood
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.
Hardwood
Louro Preto
A moderately hard, honey-brown Amazonian hardwood from Cordia goeldiana — often sold as Freijó — with a walnut-like look, easy working, and good stability.
Tropical & Exotic
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
Coast Redwood
The famous rot-resistant softwood of California's coast: light, straight-grained, and a warm reddish-brown that reads unmistakably as redwood.
Softwood
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
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.
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
Gray Mangrove
Dense, hard tidal hardwood from the world's most widespread mangrove — pale tan wood banded with the concentric rings typical of Avicennia's unusual growth.
Hardwood
Calophyllum
Warm golden- to reddish-brown Latin American hardwood of medium density, valued for flooring, joinery, and general construction with a subtle ribbon figure.
Tropical & Exotic
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
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.
Engineered
Red Mangrove
A dense, fine-grained tropical mangrove hardwood of the Caribbean and Central America — slow-grown in tidal mud and prized locally for pilings, poles, tannin, and charcoal.
Tropical & Exotic
Quebracho Colorado
One of the hardest, densest woods on earth — a deep maroon-red South American hardwood whose Spanish name literally means 'axe-breaker.'
Tropical & Exotic
Pine (unspecified)
The everyday pale, resinous softwood of Northern Europe — pale cream to light honey with crisp, boldly marked annual rings.
Softwood
Oregon Myrtle
Aromatic honey-brown hardwood from the Oregon and California coast — fine-grained, often boldly figured, and a favorite of turners.
Hardwood
Larch
A dense, resinous, weather-tough conifer with fine growth rings — the softwood of choice for outdoor cladding and where rot resistance matters.
Softwood
Japanese Maple
The wood of the ornamental Japanese maple: dense, fine-grained, with tight concentric rings and a warm reddish-brown cast in this sample.
Hardwood
Particle Board
An engineered panel of wood chips and shavings bonded with resin under heat and pressure — cheap, flat, and stable, but weak, heavy, and moisture-sensitive.
Engineered
Australian Blackwood
Australia's premium acacia cabinet timber — golden to dark reddish-brown, often boldly figured, and a close cousin of Hawaiian koa.
Hardwood
Douglas Fir
A strong, stiff Pacific Northwest softwood — cream to tan with bold growth rings and reddish bands — the backbone of North American structural timber.
Softwood