Identifying wood: colour, grain, pores, weight and smell

The Wood Guide · Understanding wood

Practical · identification

Identifying wood species

An old board, a flea-market find, a beam in the barn: which wood is it? With a sharp knife, a magnifying glass and your nose, you'll get further than you think.

Start with the end grain
Five features together
Also: treated or not

pores, rings and rays

Summary

One feature proves nothing, five together almost everything

Colour alone is deceptive: wood changes colour with light, air and oil. To identify a species, combine the structure of the wood with its colour, weight, hardness and smell.

The most reliable place to look is the end grain: the cross-cut face at the end of a board. Cut a small smooth patch with a sharp knife or craft knife and look at it through a magnifying glass. There you can see at a glance whether you are dealing with softwood or hardwood, and how the pores are distributed.

Then move to the long face: the grain, the colour of heartwood and sapwood, and any rays. Weigh the piece in your hand, press a fingernail into it, and smell a freshly sawn surface.

What you need

A sharp knife or craft knife, a 10× magnifying glass, a little water (a wet surface shows colour and grain better) and good daylight. A piece of a known species to compare with helps enormously.

1 · End grain: pores or not · ring-porous or diffuse
2 · Grain: calm, wild, rays, knots
3 · Colour: heartwood versus sapwood
4 · Weight and hardness: hand and fingernail
5 · Smell: resin, tannin, cedar, leather

To be fair: some species cannot be told apart with the naked eye — think of the many trade names of meranti or the various tropical "red" woods. There, a laboratory with a microscope is the only sure answer.

Step 1

What the end grain reveals

No pores: softwood

Softwood has no vessels, only fine fibres. The end grain looks even, with clear growth rings: a light, soft earlywood zone and a darker, harder latewood zone. You can often smell resin. Spruce, pine, Douglas fir, larch and cedar belong here. Softwood.

Pores in a ring: ring-porous hardwood

Large vessels lie in a clear ring at the start of each growth ring. Oak, ash, sweet chestnut and robinia are ring-porous. Oak · ash.

Pores everywhere: diffuse-porous hardwood

Small vessels, evenly spread across the growth ring. The rings are less pronounced. Beech, maple, birch and poplar belong here. Beech.

Tropical hardwood

Usually diffuse-porous, often with barely visible growth rings because there is no winter. Pores may be filled with white or dark deposits. Tropical wood.

Steps 2 to 5

Grain, colour, weight and smell

Grain and rays

On a quarter-sawn board, oak shows broad, shiny flecks: the rays or medullary rays. Beech has small, dark streaks of them. Ash looks like oak but lacks those rays. Knots in whorls at regular intervals point to softwood.

Colour of heartwood and sapwood

In pine, larch and Douglas fir a reddish-brown heartwood stands out against the light sapwood. In spruce and beech there is hardly any colour difference. Wet the wood: then you see the real colour, without greying. Heartwood and sapwood.

Weight and hardness

Balsa is lighter than cork, spruce is around 450 kg/m³, oak around 700 and azobé above 1,000 — the last of these sinks in water. Press a fingernail into the wood: in spruce it leaves a small dent, in oak or bangkirai hardly any. Guide values by species: what does a cubic metre of wood weigh.

Smell

Smell a freshly sawn surface. Pine smells of resin, oak slightly sour from the tannin, cedar distinctly aromatic, teak somewhat of leather. Teak also feels slightly greasy because of its natural oil.

Mix-ups

Tricky pairs

Pair	Where you see the difference	More
Spruce or pine	Pine: reddish-brown heartwood, smell of resin. Spruce: light yellowish white throughout, small knots in whorls.	Pine or spruce
Oak or ash	Oak shows rays on a quarter-sawn face; ash doesn't. Ash is lighter in colour.	Ash wood
Larch or Douglas fir	Both reddish brown with clear growth rings. Larch has a sharper transition between earlywood and latewood and is slightly heavier.	Larch or Douglas fir
Teak or other hardwood	Teak feels greasy and smells of leather; many substitutes don't.	Teak or hardwood
Oak or beech	Oak is ring-porous with large rays; beech is diffuse-porous with fine, dark streaks.	Beech wood

Treated or not

Recognising treated wood

Pressure-treated

Freshly pressure-treated spruce has a greenish or brownish tint, strongest in the light sapwood. After a few months outdoors it fades to honey and grey. Pressure-treated wood.

Thermally modified

Dark brown right through — inside too, if you cut off a splinter — and noticeably lighter than untreated wood of the same species. When fresh, it smells faintly of smoke. Thermally modified wood.

Oiled, stained or lacquered

Then the colour sits on the surface. Scrape away a small inconspicuous patch: underneath you see the actual wood. Lacquer also forms a glossy film you can feel with a fingernail.

Quality when buying

Straight grain, few knots, no blue staining or soft spots. More in recognising quality wood.

All species in one place

Photos, features and properties of more than seventy wood species are in the wood register.

Picnic table 180 cm KING ® / 4 cm board thickness

Spruce · 180 cm

View in the shop →

Quick answer

Frequently asked questions about identifying wood

How do you identify a wood species?

First look at the end grain: if you see pores, it is hardwood; if you don't, it is softwood. After that, colour, grain, weight, hardness and smell together usually give the answer.

How do you tell spruce from pine?

Pine has a clearly reddish-brown heartwood that stands out against the light sapwood, and smells of resin. Spruce is light yellowish white throughout, without a pronounced heartwood, with small knots.

How do you recognise oak?

By the large pores in a ring in the end grain and, on quarter-sawn boards, by the striking shiny rays. Oak is heavy and smells slightly sour.

How do you recognise pressure-treated wood?

Freshly pressure-treated spruce has a greenish or brownish tint that sits mainly in the sapwood. After a few months outdoors that tint fades, and then it is hard to see by eye.

From identifying to choosing

Know which wood it is? Then you also know what it needs.

The wood register Understanding wood Picnic tables

Unsure about a piece of wood? Send us a photo of the end grain.

The Wood Guide

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Identifying wood: colour, grain, pores, weight and smell

Identifying wood species

One feature proves nothing, five together almost everything