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.

Bamboo

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
Giant Sequoia

Giant Sequoia

The wood of Earth's most massive trees: light, soft, richly tannic, and famously rot-resistant, with a warm golden-brown to reddish heartwood.

Softwood
Gray Mangrove

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
Freijo

Freijo

A medium tan-brown Amazonian hardwood with a fine, even grain and a walnut-like look — stable, moderately hard, and easy to work.

Hardwood
Sweet Chestnut

Sweet Chestnut

A pale-tan, oak-like European hardwood — ring-porous, light, and naturally durable — long used for beams, fencing, coopering, and rustic furniture.

Hardwood
Sugar Maple

Sugar Maple

Dense, pale North American hardwood prized for its hardness, tight even grain, and prized figure like bird's eye and curl.

Hardwood
African Walnut

African Walnut

A golden-brown West African hardwood with fine, lustrous, gently interlocked grain and a ribbon stripe — walnut-like in look but botanically a mahogany relative.

Hardwood
Louro Preto

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
Meranti

Meranti

Southeast Asian tropical hardwood from Shorea species — a mahogany-like utility wood, golden-orange to reddish-brown, widely used for plywood, joinery, and trim.

Tropical & Exotic
Tree of Heaven

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