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
Cherry Laurel
A minor Prunus wood from an evergreen Mediterranean shrub-tree, cutting fine, even, pale-tan stock with visible growth rings.
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
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
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
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
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
Petrified Wood
Fossilized wood turned to stone — original tree grain and growth rings preserved in silica. A mineral, not a workable timber.
Reclaimed
Weathered/Dead Wood
Salvaged, naturally aged timber — golden-brown and silvered by weather, streaked with blue fungal stain and honeycombed by insect tunnels — prized for character, not species.
Reclaimed
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
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
Softwood Plywood
Cross-laminated conifer veneers bonded into stable structural sheets — the pale, workaday plywood behind subfloors, sheathing, roofs and rough carpentry.
Engineered
Particle Board
An engineered panel of wood chips and shavings bonded with resin under heat and pressure — cheap, flat, and stable, but weak, heavy, and moisture-sensitive.
Engineered
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
Okoumé
A light, soft, golden-tan Central African hardwood with fine even grain — the classic marine-plywood and core-veneer wood, low in weight and easy to peel.
Tropical & Exotic
Abachi
A very light, soft, pale West African hardwood with fine even grain — the classic sauna-bench and core-veneer wood, low in weight, heat, and resin.
Tropical & Exotic
Peach
A dense, fine-grained orchard fruitwood from the peach tree, showing light tan to pale brown tones and tight concentric growth rings.
Hardwood
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
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
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
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
Bloodwood
The intensely red South American hardwood: very dense, hard, and fine-textured, prized for its vivid blood-red heartwood in turning, inlay, and accents.
Tropical & Exotic
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
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