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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
Hemp Palm
The fibrous stem of the cold-hardy windmill palm — not a true wood but a monocot with bundled fibers set in soft tissue, light tan with a dark speckled fiber pattern.
Tropical & Exotic
Goncalo Alves
The bold striped tropical hardwood sold as Tigerwood: hard, heavy, and durable, prized for its dramatic dark chocolate streaks over a reddish-orange-brown ground.
Tropical & Exotic
Ormosia
A dense tropical South American legume wood with sharply demarcated reddish-brown heartwood against pale sapwood and clear growth rings.
Hardwood
Calophyllum
Warm golden- to reddish-brown Latin American hardwood of medium density, valued for flooring, joinery, and general construction with a subtle ribbon figure.
Tropical & Exotic
Holm Oak
A dense, very hard evergreen Mediterranean oak with fine grain and gleaming rays — pale pink to light tan, heavy, and tough to work but exceptionally wear-resistant.
Hardwood
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
Purpleheart
A dense, very hard tropical hardwood famous for turning vivid purple on exposure — strong, durable, and prized for accents, turning, and heavy-duty work.
Tropical & Exotic
Osage Orange
Extremely hard, rot-resistant North American hardwood with vivid golden-yellow heartwood — the legendary bow wood, 'bois d'arc'.
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
Red Sandalwood
A dense, deep blood-red Indian hardwood — the fine-grained, non-fragrant "red sanders," prized for color and carving but CITES-restricted and endangered.
Tropical & Exotic