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.
Honduran Mahogany
The benchmark cabinet wood — Swietenia macrophylla — prized for warm reddish-brown color, superb stability, and easy working; this sample shows rare pommele figure.
Tropical & Exotic
African Mahogany
The mainstream mahogany substitute: an open-grained West African hardwood with warm reddish-brown color and a ribbon-striped interlocked figure.
Tropical & Exotic
Genuine Mahogany
The classic cabinet wood: a medium-density tropical American hardwood, reddish-brown with an even grain, prized for stability, workability, and CITES protection.
Tropical & Exotic
African Ebony
Dense, jet-black West African hardwood with an extremely fine grain, prized for instrument parts, inlay, and fine turning.
Tropical & Exotic
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
African Padauk
The brilliant orange-red African hardwood: hard, heavy, and durable, prized for its vivid vermillion color, medium interlocked grain, and easy working.
Tropical & Exotic
American Beech
A pale, dense, close-grained North American hardwood with tiny gleaming rays — tough, steam-bendable, and long the standard for utility furniture.
Hardwood
Sweet Birch
A dense, fine-grained eastern North American birch, famous for the wintergreen scent of its bark — pale sapwood over rich reddish heartwood.
Hardwood
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
Rosewood
The classic dark tropical hardwood: dense, oily, and fragrant, with rich chocolate-to-purple-brown heartwood and fine interlocked grain prized for fine furniture and instruments.
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
Mansonia
A fine, even-grained West African hardwood often sold as a walnut substitute — attractive but notorious for its highly irritating dust.
Hardwood
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
Nigerian Hardwood (possibly Direm)
A cream-to-warm-tan West African hardwood from Nigeria, tentatively identified as Direm, with prominent rays and reddish-brown vessel highlights.
Hardwood
Koa
Endemic Hawaiian hardwood prized for its golden-to-reddish-brown color and shimmering chatoyant curly figure — the signature wood of the islands.
Hardwood
Osage Orange
Extremely hard, rot-resistant North American hardwood with vivid golden-yellow heartwood — the legendary bow wood, 'bois d'arc'.
Hardwood
Black Walnut
Prized North American hardwood with rich chocolate-brown heartwood, pale sapwood, and superb workability for fine furniture.
Hardwood
Ormosia
A dense tropical South American legume wood with sharply demarcated reddish-brown heartwood against pale sapwood and clear growth rings.
Hardwood
Paper Birch
A pale, fine-grained North American hardwood famous for its white peeling bark; tough, even, and easy to work but not decay-resistant.
Hardwood
Iroko
West Africa's durable golden-brown hardwood — often called African teak — prized for outdoor joinery, boatwork and worktops for its stability and decay resistance.
Tropical & Exotic
White Ash
A strong, pale, ring-porous North American hardwood with bold straight grain and outstanding shock resistance — the classic wood for tool handles and baseball bats.
Hardwood
Shorea
Broad Southeast Asian genus sold as meranti and lauan — a light tan, straight-grained tropical hardwood used for plywood, joinery, and utility furniture.
Tropical & Exotic
Wenge
Dark brown-to-black Central African hardwood with a bold black-and-tan striped figure, coarse texture, and high density — a favorite for flooring and accents.
Tropical & Exotic
Soft Maple or Ash (unidentified)
A pale cream-to-tan Eastern North American hardwood — this sample sits between soft maple and ash, two common domestic species that overlap in light stock.
Hardwood