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.

All Hardwood Softwood Tropical & Exotic Engineered Bamboo Reclaimed

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.

Soft Maple or Ash (unidentified)

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.

European Ash

A pale, ring-porous European hardwood — tough, springy and shock-resistant, with bold grain lines and legendary steam-bending and handle-making qualities.

White Poplar

A pale, lightweight European hardwood of the poplar family — soft, fine-textured, and odorless, long used for boxes, plywood core, and utility work.

White Oak

Dense, ring-porous North American hardwood prized for its prominent ray fleck, closed pores, and legendary rot resistance.

White Spruce

A light, pale, straight-grained North American softwood — the classic clean, low-resin utility conifer prized for its strength-to-weight ratio and pale even face.

White Mulberry

A tough, golden-hued fruit-tree hardwood prized by turners and carvers for its ripple figure, though sawn samples often read pale cream to light tan.

White Mangrove

A dense, hard mangrove hardwood of tropical tidal coasts — light tan to buff, small and gnarled, rarely milled and mostly used for posts, fuel, and charcoal.

Tropical & Exotic

Eastern White Pine

Eastern White Pine

The classic soft, lightweight, pale North American pine: fine even grain, distinct growth rings, and a wood that carves, planes, and paints with ease.

Rowan

A tough, fine-textured European turning and carving wood from the rowan tree — pale tan sapwood, warm brown heart, and centuries of folklore.

Quassia

Light, soft, golden-brown tropical wood famous for its intensely bitter quassin content, valued more for tonic and insecticide chips than as commercial timber.

Tropical & Exotic

Arborvitae

A very light, soft, aromatic softwood — better known as Northern White Cedar — prized for rot resistance in shingles, posts, and canoe ribs.

Tree of Heaven

Pale cream-to-tan ring-porous hardwood from a fast-growing invasive tree — ash-like grain, light, satiny, and essentially free where it grows.

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.

Butternut

Pale honey-brown walnut relative — soft, light, easy to carve, and prized for its satiny sheen. Now scarce due to butternut canker.

European Hornbeam

European Hornbeam

A pale, exceptionally hard and heavy European hardwood with fine, even grain — the classic wood for mallet heads, gears, tool handles, and piano actions.

Whitebeam

A pale, fine-grained European hardwood from the Sorbus family — dense, hard, and even-textured, prized in small pieces for turning, tool parts, and precision work.

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.

Sugar Maple

Dense, pale North American hardwood prized for its hardness, tight even grain, and prized figure like bird's eye and curl.

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

Grand Fir

A light, soft, pale Pacific Northwest true fir with fine even grain and low resin — an economical framing and utility softwood, mild-working but not decay-resistant.

American Beech

A pale, dense, close-grained North American hardwood with tiny gleaming rays — tough, steam-bendable, and long the standard for utility furniture.

Mangrove Apple

A fine, dense, light-tan tropical mangrove hardwood — modest in size and rarely a commercial timber, used locally for tough, decay-prone service.

Tropical & Exotic

Birch Veneer

Thin, rotary-cut or sliced sheets of pale birch used as plywood faces and cabinet skins — light tan, straight-grained, and prized for its clean, even surface.