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.
Quassia
Light, soft, golden-brown tropical wood famous for its intensely bitter quassin content, valued more for tonic and insecticide chips than as commercial timber.
Tropical & Exotic
Eucalyptus
A huge Australian hardwood genus sold as "gum": this sample shows the warm golden-honey, fine straight grain with subtle ray fleck typical of the eucalypt oaks.
Hardwood
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
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
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
Shagbark Hickory
A pale, exceptionally hard and shock-resistant North American hardwood — the classic tough wood for tool handles, ladder rungs, and flooring.
Hardwood
Deodar Cedar
An aromatic Himalayan true cedar with fine even grain, light tan to yellowish-brown color, and good natural decay resistance — a classic building and joinery softwood.
Softwood
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
Ebony
Dense, jet-black tropical hardwood with an extremely fine, poreless grain, prized for instrument parts, fine turning, and inlay.
Tropical & Exotic
Genuine Mahogany
The classic cabinet wood: a medium-density tropical American hardwood, reddish-brown with an even grain, prized for stability, workability, and CITES protection.
Tropical & Exotic
European Beech
Pale, fine-textured European hardwood; hard, heavy, and the classic steam-bending timber for bentwood chairs, tool handles, and turnery.
Hardwood
Bamboo
A fast-growing woody grass — not a true wood — used as round culms and glued into hard, dimensionally stable engineered boards and flooring.
Bamboo
Brazilian Cedar
The aromatic 'cedar' of cigar boxes and guitar necks — a light, soft, spicy-scented tropical wood that is botanically a mahogany relative, not a true cedar.
Softwood
Grand Fir
A light, soft, pale Pacific Northwest true fir with fine even grain and low resin — an economical framing and utility softwood, mild-working but not decay-resistant.
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
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