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

Red Oak

The workhorse of American hardwoods — a strong, ring-porous, coarse-grained oak with bold rays, a reddish cast, and open pores you can see with the naked eye.

White Oak

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

Pin Oak

A ring-porous red-oak-group hardwood — pale tan with reddish undertones, coarse open grain and bold rays, sold and worked as red oak.

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.

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.

Downy Oak

A dense, pale-gold Central European white oak with fine, distinct annual rings and broad rays — tough, durable, and closely related to English oak.

Reclaimed Oak

Salvaged oak recovered from old barns, beams, floors, and casks — dense, ring-porous timber prized for its aged patina, tight old-growth grain, and history.

English Oak

A ring-porous European white oak prized for strength, ray fleck, and durable heartwood in furniture, joinery, and cooperage.

Pyrenean Oak

A warm golden-toned Iberian white oak with prominent ring-porous grain and bold ray fleck — a hardy, medium-dense European oak used for furniture, flooring, and cooperage.

Silky Oak

A light golden Australian hardwood with bold ray fleck and a lacy, silky figure on quartered faces — the classic 'silky oak' of colonial furniture and joinery.

Cork Oak

The evergreen Mediterranean oak prized for its thick cork bark; the wood beneath is a dense, hard, reddish-brown oak used mostly for charcoal, turnery, and firewood.

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.

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.

Red Mangrove

A dense, fine-grained tropical mangrove hardwood of the Caribbean and Central America — slow-grown in tidal mud and prized locally for pilings, poles, tannin, and charcoal.

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

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 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.

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

Lacewood

Australian rainforest hardwood whose quartersawn face bursts with a lacy ray-fleck figure — reddish-brown ground splashed with pale cream flecks.

Tropical & Exotic

Eucalyptus

A huge Australian hardwood genus sold as "gum": this sample shows the warm golden-honey, fine straight grain with subtle ray fleck typical of the eucalypt oaks.

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

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.

American Beech

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