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.
Hawthorn
A very hard, dense pale European hedgerow hardwood with a fine even grain, prized in small sizes for turning, tool handles and engraving.
Hardwood
Peach
A dense, fine-grained orchard fruitwood from the peach tree, showing light tan to pale brown tones and tight concentric growth rings.
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
Ceylon Oak
Extremely hard, heavy South Asian hardwood (kusum) with fine even grain and medium-to-dark brown color, used for tool handles, crushers, and turnery.
Hardwood
Shorea
Broad Southeast Asian genus sold as meranti and lauan — a light tan, straight-grained tropical hardwood used for plywood, joinery, and utility furniture.
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
Japanese Zelkova
Keyaki — Japan's premier temple and furniture hardwood: a ring-porous elm relative with warm reddish-amber color, bold grain, and lustrous figure.
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
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
East Indian Rosewood
Dense, dark reddish-brown South Asian rosewood with fine interlocked grain — a fragrant, durable cabinet and instrument wood prized for tone and figure.
Hardwood
Yew
A dense, springy European softwood prized for its rich orange-brown heartwood, knotty figure, and the legendary spring that made English longbows.
Softwood
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
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
Boxwood
Exceptionally dense, fine-grained European hardwood in pale cream-yellow, prized for engraving, turning, carving, and instrument fittings.
Hardwood
Ormosia
A dense tropical South American legume wood with sharply demarcated reddish-brown heartwood against pale sapwood and clear growth rings.
Hardwood
Bahera
A moderately hard, fine-grained reddish-brown to tan Asian hardwood from the bahera (beleric myrobalan) tree, used for utility joinery, plywood, and packing.
Tropical & Exotic
Figured Hardwood
A hardwood showing wavy, curly figure in warm golden-tan to honey tones — the chatoyant 'curl' prized for showpiece surfaces.
Hardwood
California Nutmeg
A fine, straight-grained golden-tan softwood from California's yew relative Torreya californica — dense, durable, aromatic, and rarely available commercially.
Softwood
Canary Pine
A resinous, warm-toned softwood from the Canary Island pine — pale cream sapwood over a durable, amber "tea" heartwood long prized for island joinery and balconies.
Softwood
Holm Oak
A dense, very hard evergreen Mediterranean oak with fine grain and gleaming rays — pale pink to light tan, heavy, and tough to work but exceptionally wear-resistant.
Hardwood
Softwood Plywood
Cross-laminated conifer veneers bonded into stable structural sheets — the pale, workaday plywood behind subfloors, sheathing, roofs and rough carpentry.
Engineered
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
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