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.
Yew
A dense, springy European softwood prized for its rich orange-brown heartwood, knotty figure, and the legendary spring that made English longbows.
Softwood
English Walnut
European hardwood prized for warm brown heartwood and superb figure; the classic gunstock, furniture and veneer walnut.
Hardwood
English Oak
A ring-porous European white oak prized for strength, ray fleck, and durable heartwood in furniture, joinery, and cooperage.
Hardwood
California Nutmeg
A fine, straight-grained golden-tan softwood from California's yew relative Torreya californica — dense, durable, aromatic, and rarely available commercially.
Softwood
Boxwood
Exceptionally dense, fine-grained European hardwood in pale cream-yellow, prized for engraving, turning, carving, and instrument fittings.
Hardwood
Cherry Laurel
A minor Prunus wood from an evergreen Mediterranean shrub-tree, cutting fine, even, pale-tan stock with visible growth rings.
Hardwood
European Ash
A pale, ring-porous European hardwood — tough, springy and shock-resistant, with bold grain lines and legendary steam-bending and handle-making qualities.
Hardwood
Smoked Oak
European oak darkened throughout by ammonia fuming — the same tough, ring-porous Quercus robur, deepened to warm brown or charcoal without surface stain.
Hardwood
Elm
A tough, interlocked-grained hardwood in warm golden-tan to pale brown — famous for resisting splitting and for its exceptional durability underwater.
Hardwood
Downy Oak
A dense, pale-gold Central European white oak with fine, distinct annual rings and broad rays — tough, durable, and closely related to English oak.
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