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.
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
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
American Beech
A pale, dense, close-grained North American hardwood with tiny gleaming rays — tough, steam-bendable, and long the standard for utility furniture.
Hardwood
Quaking Aspen
A pale, lightweight North American hardwood — nearly white, fine and uniform in grain, soft and odorless, and the classic wood for saunas, matches, and pallets.
Hardwood
Rosewood
The classic dark tropical hardwood: dense, oily, and fragrant, with rich chocolate-to-purple-brown heartwood and fine interlocked grain prized for fine furniture and instruments.
Tropical & Exotic
Linden
A pale, feather-light hardwood with fine straight grain and almost no figure — the traditional wood of European carvers and a top choice for detailed relief work.
Hardwood
Osage Orange
Extremely hard, rot-resistant North American hardwood with vivid golden-yellow heartwood — the legendary bow wood, 'bois d'arc'.
Hardwood
Black Walnut
Prized North American hardwood with rich chocolate-brown heartwood, pale sapwood, and superb workability for fine furniture.
Hardwood
Ormosia
A dense tropical South American legume wood with sharply demarcated reddish-brown heartwood against pale sapwood and clear growth rings.
Hardwood
Paper Birch
A pale, fine-grained North American hardwood famous for its white peeling bark; tough, even, and easy to work but not decay-resistant.
Hardwood
White Ash
A strong, pale, ring-porous North American hardwood with bold straight grain and outstanding shock resistance — the classic wood for tool handles and baseball bats.
Hardwood
Soft Maple or Ash (unidentified)
A pale cream-to-tan Eastern North American hardwood — this sample sits between soft maple and ash, two common domestic species that overlap in light stock.
Hardwood
Tropical Hardwood
A dense, imported Neotropical hardwood with golden-yellow sapwood, very dark brown heartwood and tight concentric growth rings.
Tropical & Exotic
Black Cherry
A prized eastern North American hardwood with silky straight grain that ages from pale pinkish-tan to a warm reddish-brown.
Hardwood
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
White Oak
Dense, ring-porous North American hardwood prized for its prominent ray fleck, closed pores, and legendary rot resistance.
Hardwood
Jatoba (Brazilian Cherry / Courbaril)
A dense, very hard tropical hardwood in golden-honey to red-brown tones — the classic 'Brazilian cherry' flooring wood, prized for durability and toughness.
Tropical & Exotic
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
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
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
Arborvitae
A very light, soft, aromatic softwood — better known as Northern White Cedar — prized for rot resistance in shingles, posts, and canoe ribs.
Softwood
Honduran Mahogany
The benchmark cabinet wood — Swietenia macrophylla — prized for warm reddish-brown color, superb stability, and easy working; this sample shows rare pommele figure.
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
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