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.
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
Osage Orange
Extremely hard, rot-resistant North American hardwood with vivid golden-yellow heartwood — the legendary bow wood, 'bois d'arc'.
Hardwood
Ormosia
A dense tropical South American legume wood with sharply demarcated reddish-brown heartwood against pale sapwood and clear growth rings.
Hardwood
Mango Wood
A golden-brown tropical hardwood reclaimed from spent fruit orchards — light-tan with dark streaks, often figured, prized as a sustainable furniture wood.
Tropical & Exotic
Oriented Strand Board (OSB)
An engineered structural panel of cross-oriented wood strands bonded with resin under heat and pressure — the pale, mottled tan sheathing board of modern construction.
Engineered
Petrified Wood
Fossilized wood turned to stone — original tree grain and growth rings preserved in silica. A mineral, not a workable timber.
Reclaimed
Stained or Treated Hardwood
Not a single species but any hardwood whose natural color has been altered by stain, dye, or a preservative or protective treatment.
Hardwood
Beech Fossil Wood
Fossilized (petrified) beech — the original Fagus wood turned to stone yet still showing cream, tan, red, and brown growth rings. A collector specimen, not workable lumber.
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
Cannonball Mangrove
A mahogany-family mangrove hardwood from Indo-Pacific tidal forests — pale tan sapwood, warm brown heartwood, and moderate, evenly spaced growth rings.
Tropical & Exotic
Jack Wood
Heavy, tough South/Southeast Asian hardwood in warm tan to light brown, valued for its strength, durability and heavy structural and joinery work.
Hardwood
Nux Vomica
A hard, dense, close-grained brown hardwood from the South Asian strychnine tree, whose bitter alkaloid-laden timber is used for tool handles, implements, and turnery.
Tropical & Exotic
Fig
The soft, pale, lightweight wood of the common fig tree — an orchard hardwood rarely milled for lumber, valued mainly for small turnery and carving.
Hardwood
Japanese Maple
The wood of the ornamental Japanese maple: dense, fine-grained, with tight concentric rings and a warm reddish-brown cast in this sample.
Hardwood
Pau d'arco
Extremely dense, reddish- to orange-brown South American hardwood — the classic ipe/lapacho decking and outdoor timber, prized for hardness and rot resistance.
Tropical & Exotic
Cocobolo
A dense, oily Central American rosewood prized for vivid reddish-orange heartwood streaked with dark accents — a CITES-listed knife-handle and turning wood.
Tropical & Exotic
Colorado Blue Spruce
A pale, lightweight Rocky Mountain softwood with fine, even growth rings — an ornamental spruce whose creamy, straight-grained wood is used mainly for utility lumber and paper.
Softwood
Golden Chain Tree
Dense, hard European ornamental hardwood prized for its rich color contrast and used in turning, inlay, and woodwind instruments — but every part is poisonous.
Hardwood
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
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
Cherry Laurel
A minor Prunus wood from an evergreen Mediterranean shrub-tree, cutting fine, even, pale-tan stock with visible growth rings.
Hardwood
Rowan
A tough, fine-textured European turning and carving wood from the rowan tree — pale tan sapwood, warm brown heart, and centuries of folklore.
Hardwood
Olive
The dense, richly streaked wood of the olive tree: pale tan and cream shot through with darker brown heartwood, prized by turners for its dramatic figure.
Hardwood
Great Basin Bristlecone Pine
Wood of the world's oldest trees — a dense, resinous, extremely slow-grown high-desert pine with tight rings and twisted grain, golden tan in color.
Softwood