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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Petrified Wood

Fossilized wood turned to stone — original tree grain and growth rings preserved in silica. A mineral, not a workable timber.

Rowan

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

Figured Hardwood

Figured Hardwood

A hardwood showing wavy, curly figure in warm golden-tan to honey tones — the chatoyant 'curl' prized for showpiece surfaces.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Quaking Aspen

A pale, lightweight North American hardwood — nearly white, fine and uniform in grain, soft and odorless, and the classic wood for saunas, matches, and pallets.

Peach

A dense, fine-grained orchard fruitwood from the peach tree, showing light tan to pale brown tones and tight concentric growth rings.

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.

Freijo

A medium tan-brown Amazonian hardwood with a fine, even grain and a walnut-like look — stable, moderately hard, and easy to work.

Meranti

Southeast Asian tropical hardwood from Shorea species — a mahogany-like utility wood, golden-orange to reddish-brown, widely used for plywood, joinery, and trim.

Tropical & Exotic

Silver Birch

Pale cream-white European hardwood with fine, even grain and clear growth rings; tough, plywood-grade, but low in decay resistance.

Indian Sandalwood

Indian Sandalwood

The famed fragrant heartwood of Santalum album: fine, close, warm golden-brown wood prized for carving and aromatic oil, and now strictly protected.

Tropical & Exotic

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

American Beech

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

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.