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.
Shagbark Hickory
A pale, exceptionally hard and shock-resistant North American hardwood — the classic tough wood for tool handles, ladder rungs, and flooring.
Hardwood
Osage Orange
Extremely hard, rot-resistant North American hardwood with vivid golden-yellow heartwood — the legendary bow wood, 'bois d'arc'.
Hardwood
Ormosia
A dense tropical South American legume wood with sharply demarcated reddish-brown heartwood against pale sapwood and clear growth rings.
Hardwood
Oregon Myrtle
Aromatic honey-brown hardwood from the Oregon and California coast — fine-grained, often boldly figured, and a favorite of turners.
Hardwood
Oriental Plane
A golden-brown Mediterranean hardwood famous for its dazzling ray fleck — the classic 'lacewood' figure on the quartered face.
Hardwood
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
Oriented Strand Board (OSB)
An engineered structural panel of cross-oriented wood strands bonded with resin under heat and pressure — the pale, mottled tan sheathing board of modern construction.
Engineered
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
Coast Redwood or Giant Sequoia
California's iconic reddish softwood — light, straight-grained, aromatic-free, and prized for its exceptional natural decay resistance in old-growth heartwood.
Softwood
English Oak
A ring-porous European white oak prized for strength, ray fleck, and durable heartwood in furniture, joinery, and cooperage.
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
Japanese Maple
The wood of the ornamental Japanese maple: dense, fine-grained, with tight concentric rings and a warm reddish-brown cast in this sample.
Hardwood
Red Alder
The Pacific Northwest's workhorse softwood-of-a-hardwood: pale, even-textured, and famous for the warm orange blush it takes on when freshly cut.
Hardwood
Douglas Fir
A strong, stiff Pacific Northwest softwood — cream to tan with bold growth rings and reddish bands — the backbone of North American structural timber.
Softwood
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
Petrified Wood
Fossilized wood turned to stone — original tree grain and growth rings preserved in silica. A mineral, not a workable timber.
Reclaimed
Poplar Burl
Highly figured burl cut from European poplar — a soft, light hardwood prized for its swirling eyes and warm golden-orange, dark-pored face.
Hardwood
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
Pau d'arco
Extremely dense, reddish- to orange-brown South American hardwood — the classic ipe/lapacho decking and outdoor timber, prized for hardness and rot resistance.
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
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
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
Colorado Blue Spruce
A pale, lightweight Rocky Mountain softwood with fine, even growth rings — an ornamental spruce whose creamy, straight-grained wood is used mainly for utility lumber and paper.
Softwood