{"id":4571,"date":"2011-06-22T20:26:31","date_gmt":"2011-06-23T02:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wood-database.com\/?page_id=4571"},"modified":"2021-10-08T21:30:39","modified_gmt":"2021-10-09T02:30:39","slug":"the-truth-behind-wood-identification","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.wood-database.com\/wood-articles\/the-truth-behind-wood-identification\/","title":{"rendered":"The Truth Behind Wood Identification"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tby Eric Meier<\/b>\n

After having personally worked with hundreds of wood species, (obviously\u00a0some much more than others), and having read a number of books and articles on wood identification, I\u2019ve come to an unsettling conclusion: it seems that the more I learn and discover, the more I realize how very little I know. The more accurate and thorough my\u00a0identification\u00a0process becomes, the more certain I become that I really cannot guarantee that I am correct.<\/p>\n

Think you’re a know-it-all? Take this test to see how good you really are!<\/h1>\n
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Hypothetical situation:<\/h3>\nA wood-collecting friend approaches you with five different wood samples, and asks you to identify them. You ask them where they came from, and they just shrug their shoulders and hand you the samples. You have nothing to go on except the facegrain of the wood itself. This is what you see:<\/blockquote>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Can you accurately identify all five of these wood samples?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\nJust to make it interesting, I\u2019ll play this game too. Here are my honest\u00a0efforts\u00a0for the five samples above, from left to right:\n
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My Guesses:<\/h3>\n
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  1. Black walnut<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Color and grain look right, and it\u2019s a common hardwood, so it\u2019s a solid guess; weight is a bit high: is this board still drying?<\/li>\n \t
  2. Honduran mahogany<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Grain might be a little plain, but the pattern looks right, and the weight feels close.<\/li>\n \t
  3. White ash<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The color and coarse grain looks\u00a0like ash, though the weight seems a bit too light: maybe the sample is from a very dry location?<\/li>\n \t
  4. Zebrawood<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 What other wood has this kind of zebra striping? Most likely quartersawn since the stripes are so uniform.<\/li>\n \t
  5. Black cherry<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 Color and grain are similar, and the weight feels right-on, eliminating heavier fruitwoods like\u00a0apple<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\nSo, what are\u00a0your\u00a0<\/em>guesses? Well, if you had deduced any of the woods that I initially guessed, then you\u2019d get a score of zero!\u00a0Here are the\u00a0actual identities<\/em> of the woods above, from left to right:\n
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    Correct Answers:<\/h3>\n
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    1. Black mesquite<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 A fair amount heavier than walnut, also diffuse porous with vasicentric to aliform parenchyma.<\/li>\n \t
    2. Andiroba<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Well, it\u2019s brown\u2026 does that help? There are a bunch of Mahogany\u00a0lookalikes: it\u2019s not always easy to tell them apart.<\/li>\n \t
    3. Sassafras<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Very similar in appearance to ash, but slightly lighter in weight, and with a spicy odor.<\/li>\n \t
    4. Beli<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Zebrawood isn\u2019t the only wood that is striped. Beli has heavily vasicentric parenchyma, while Zebrawood\u2019s parenchyma tends to be diffuse-in-aggregates.<\/li>\n \t
    5. Sourwood<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Not only was it not Cherry, it wasn\u2019t even in the fruitwood\/rose\u00a0(Rosaceae)\u00a0family!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\nDo you see how my ability to accurately identify wood based upon intuition was tainted by my own experiences of what I thought were \u201cregular\u201d woods? I named woods that I was used to working with, but for different people, in different parts of the world, this set of intuitive guesses might be totally different. A person in China or\u00a0Australia\u00a0might have five totally different guesses than mine, and all could be completely wrong guesses, with each person equally self-assured and unable to sufficiently articulate their position.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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