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.
Sweetgum
A moderately hard eastern North American hardwood with fine even grain — pale sapwood (sapgum) and reddish-brown heartwood (redgum) that takes stain and finish beautifully.
Hardwood
Black Walnut
Prized North American hardwood with rich chocolate-brown heartwood, pale sapwood, and superb workability for fine furniture.
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
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
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
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
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
East Indian Rosewood
Dense, dark reddish-brown South Asian rosewood with fine interlocked grain — a fragrant, durable cabinet and instrument wood prized for tone and figure.
Hardwood
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
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
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
Ceylon Oak
Extremely hard, heavy South Asian hardwood (kusum) with fine even grain and medium-to-dark brown color, used for tool handles, crushers, and turnery.
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
Juniper
Aromatic, knotty Western softwood with honey-tan sapwood and dark, rot-resistant heartwood — dense and gnarly for a conifer, prized for character turning and rustic work.
Softwood
Tropical Hardwood
A dense, imported Neotropical hardwood with golden-yellow sapwood, very dark brown heartwood and tight concentric growth rings.
Tropical & Exotic
Common Hook-thorn Acacia
A dense southern-African thorn tree yielding dark reddish-brown heartwood with cream sapwood — a hard, tough, mostly local-use timber.
Hardwood
Kingwood
A dense, violet-brown Brazilian rosewood streaked with dark lines — a historic marquetry and turning wood, small in size and premium in price.
Tropical & Exotic
Olive
The dense, richly streaked wood of the olive tree: pale tan and cream shot through with darker brown heartwood, prized by turners for its dramatic figure.
Hardwood
Unknown Specimen (c00750)
An unidentified medium-to-dark brown hardwood specimen with moderate grain; documented from a real sample but not matched to a confirmed species.
Hardwood
Malabar Myrobalan
A dense, dark-brown Indian hardwood of the Terminalia group — the classic 'Indian Laurel' of cabinetwork, with golden tones and a moderate ribbon figure.
Tropical & Exotic
Cocobolo
A dense, oily Central American rosewood prized for vivid reddish-orange heartwood streaked with dark accents — a CITES-listed knife-handle and turning wood.
Tropical & Exotic
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
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
Black Mangrove
A dense, hard mangrove hardwood from tropical tidal coasts — pale tan with darker growth rings; heavy and durable but small, twisted, and rarely milled into lumber.
Hardwood