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.
Black Cherry
A prized eastern North American hardwood with silky straight grain that ages from pale pinkish-tan to a warm reddish-brown.
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
Bird Cherry
A fine-grained European Prunus with reddish-brown heartwood, tight annual rings, and a warm satiny surface — a small-scale cabinet and turning wood.
Hardwood
Sweet Cherry
The prized European cabinet cherry: fine tight-ringed grain and a silky surface that ripens from creamy tan to warm reddish-brown.
Hardwood
Cherry Laurel
A minor Prunus wood from an evergreen Mediterranean shrub-tree, cutting fine, even, pale-tan stock with visible growth rings.
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
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
Sweet Birch
A dense, fine-grained eastern North American birch, famous for the wintergreen scent of its bark — pale sapwood over rich reddish heartwood.
Hardwood
Coast Redwood or Giant Sequoia
California's iconic reddish softwood — light, straight-grained, aromatic-free, and prized for its exceptional natural decay resistance in old-growth heartwood.
Softwood
Plum
A dense, fine-grained fruitwood in the cherry family, prized by turners and carvers for its rich streaky color and small, knotty billets.
Hardwood
European Maple
Pale, lustrous European hardwood prized for curly and burl figure; the classic tonewood for violin backs and fine turnery.
Hardwood
Pacific Madrone
A dense, warm-toned Pacific Coast hardwood prized for wild curly and burl figure, but notorious for moving and warping as it dries.
Hardwood
Lacewood
Australian rainforest hardwood whose quartersawn face bursts with a lacy ray-fleck figure — reddish-brown ground splashed with pale cream flecks.
Tropical & Exotic
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
Kauri
A golden, fine-grained New Zealand softwood — even-textured and stable, famed for huge clear boards and for ancient bog-buried 'swamp kauri'.
Softwood