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.
Eucalyptus
A huge Australian hardwood genus sold as "gum": this sample shows the warm golden-honey, fine straight grain with subtle ray fleck typical of the eucalypt oaks.
Hardwood
Australian Mangrove
A dense, fine-grained tropical mangrove hardwood from Australia and the Pacific — slow-grown, tightly ringed, and traditionally cut for pilings, poles, and fuel.
Tropical & Exotic
Red Gum
A dense Australian eucalypt famed for deep-red heartwood; the paler tan-to-cream sapwood shown here carries interlocked grain, fine texture, and visible rays.
Hardwood
Tropical Hardwood
A dense, imported Neotropical hardwood with golden-yellow sapwood, very dark brown heartwood and tight concentric growth rings.
Tropical & Exotic
Tropical/Exotic Hardwood
A general category for dense tropical hardwoods; this sample shows pale tan-to-cream heartwood with a distinct dark bark layer and clear growth structure.
Tropical & Exotic
Blackbutt
A dense, pale golden-brown Australian eucalypt hardwood with fine even grain — a workhorse structural, flooring, and decking timber prized for strength and bushfire resistance.
Hardwood
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
Silky Oak
A light golden Australian hardwood with bold ray fleck and a lacy, silky figure on quartered faces — the classic 'silky oak' of colonial furniture and joinery.
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
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
Goupia
A dense, durable golden-brown to olive hardwood of the northern Amazon, prized for heavy exterior construction, decking, and marine work.
Hardwood
Boxwood
Exceptionally dense, fine-grained European hardwood in pale cream-yellow, prized for engraving, turning, carving, and instrument fittings.
Hardwood
Bulletwood
Extremely dense, durable reddish-brown South American hardwood with fine, uniform grain, prized for heavy construction, decking, and turning.
Tropical & Exotic
Sapele
A dense reddish-brown African hardwood in the mahogany family, prized for its lustrous interlocked ribbon stripe and use in furniture, joinery, and guitars.
Tropical & Exotic
Lignum Vitae
A dense, oily, self-lubricating South American hardwood with bold light-and-dark striping — the tough, waxy stand-in traded as lignum vitae.
Tropical & Exotic
Honey Locust
A hard, dense, ring-porous North American hardwood with warm reddish-brown heartwood, pale golden sapwood, and surprising decay resistance.
Hardwood
Hawthorn
A very hard, dense pale European hedgerow hardwood with a fine even grain, prized in small sizes for turning, tool handles and engraving.
Hardwood
Sugar Maple
Dense, pale North American hardwood prized for its hardness, tight even grain, and prized figure like bird's eye and curl.
Hardwood
Katalox
A dense, very dark brown-to-black tropical hardwood from Mexico and Central America, prized as an affordable ebony substitute with fine, tight grain.
Tropical & Exotic
Padauk
Dense, durable Southeast Asian hardwood famous for vivid orange-red heartwood that ages to a deep purple-maroon, prized for furniture, flooring and turning.
Tropical & Exotic
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
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
Bruguiera cylindrica
A dense, hard mangrove hardwood from Southeast Asia's tidal forests — fine-grained, tan to light brown, and cut mostly for poles, fuelwood, and charcoal.
Hardwood
Red Mangrove
A dense, fine-grained tropical mangrove hardwood of the Caribbean and Central America — slow-grown in tidal mud and prized locally for pilings, poles, tannin, and charcoal.
Tropical & Exotic