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.

Lacewood

Lacewood

Australian rainforest hardwood whose quartersawn face bursts with a lacy ray-fleck figure — reddish-brown ground splashed with pale cream flecks.

Tropical & Exotic
Australian Mangrove

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
Australian Blackwood

Australian Blackwood

Australia's premium acacia cabinet timber — golden to dark reddish-brown, often boldly figured, and a close cousin of Hawaiian koa.

Hardwood
Oriental Plane

Oriental Plane

A golden-brown Mediterranean hardwood famous for its dazzling ray fleck — the classic 'lacewood' figure on the quartered face.

Hardwood
London Plane

London Plane

A European hybrid plane whose quartersawn boards show the classic lacewood fleck — golden-tan, ray-flecked timber prized for decorative veneer and joinery.

Hardwood
Gray Mangrove

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

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
Red Gum

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
Eucalyptus

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
Blackbutt

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
Kauri

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
Swiss Stone Pine

Swiss Stone Pine

Light, soft, aromatic Alpine softwood — the classic 'Zirbe' carving and paneling wood, pale cream to off-white with a lasting sweet resinous scent.

Softwood