Fill in the blank, or multiple choice?

Of course, if we had restricted this exercise only to the most commonly used hardwoods, then the identification process would’ve been much easier. But in real-world situations, it’s seldom that simple. It’s one thing to find a misplaced board at a lumberyard and reason, “this must belong in one of these piles” and have our expansive quest reduced to a simple multiple-choice test question.

Or suppose that we were at an Amish furniture shop in Pennsylvania, and we knew that they mill and process all their own timber: the choices would be significantly narrower, and the source of the lumber would be more obvious. We would logically deduce that the wood had to originate from a region nearby, and must be limited to only those trees that are native to the northeastern United States. This is what we call provenance: when we know with a fair degree of certainty where a wood sample came from.

A difficulty for us amateur wood detectives (in addition to the absence of unique identifiers already lacking in the wood itself), is that we usually have little to no information about the origin of the wood. The wood just showed up from somewhere: it was pulled from someone’s dusty garage shelf, or it was taken from an obscure pallet or crate, or it was discovered second-hand at a garage sale. While certain woods are certainly much more common than others, this lack of a reliable source leaves the door wide open to the big, broad, vast expanse of this tree-covered globe. Our number of choices—even among commercially viable timber-producing trees—is staggering, to say the least. We are essentially being asked to fill in the blank. Even a printed volume that encompasses several hundred commercial (and many non-commercial) wood samples would be insufficient to address each and every possible wood species that is and has been in use.

When wood identification works

Of course, there are certainly times when wood identification is very useful and reliable. While there are typically not enough unique characteristics to identify a particular species (i.e., Acer pseudoplatanus), oftentimes—especially with many temperate-zone hardwoods found in the United States—there will be enough information present to reasonably identify a sample down to the genus level (i.e., Acer spp.). We may not be able to take a wood sample and pronounce, “this is Quercus laurifolia—Laurel Oak.” But we should be able to identify that it is in fact an oak, in the Quercus genus. And from there, we may even be able to identify it down to a sub-genus level, and say it is in the red oak group.

But another advantage in wood identification lies in the fact that even though it seems we have no clues to go on, we can usually make some safe assumptions or inferences about a wood sample’s provenance.

For instance, if we see some wooden kitchen cabinets out in a rustic country cabin, it would be reasonable to assume that most cabinet-makers in the area would’ve used a domestic hardwood species. There are only perhaps a few dozen native hardwoods commonly used for cabinetry in the United States, which narrows our options down significantly. In this instance, if we have much experience in domestic hardwoods at all, we should be able to eyeball and/or spot the differences between maple, beech, oak, walnut, etc. relatively easily. (Further examination might then confirm or deny our initial designation.)

But if we were in a fancy, upscale city restaurant where all the woodwork looked foreign and unfamiliar, or we were in a distant locale such as South Africa or Thailand, then the story would be much different, and a much different set of assumptions—perhaps a set unknown to us—would have to be used. (For more information on these types of deductive identification methods, please see the page entitled Wood Identification Guide.)

Be honest

We might as well be honest with ourselves: sometimes wood identification is an uncertain thing. So long as we maintain proper expectations of the identification procedure, and recognize that we might not have all the answers, wood identification can be a useful and enjoyable pursuit. Sometimes the most accurate answer that we can expect to uncover through diligent and thorough examination is simply a question mark.

Get the hard copy

If you’re interested in getting all that makes The Wood Database unique distilled into a single, real-world resource, there’s the book that’s based on the website—the Amazon.com best-seller, WOOD! Identifying and Using Hundreds of Woods Worldwide. It contains many of the most popular articles found on this website, as well as hundreds of wood profiles—laid out with the same clarity and convenience of the website—packaged in a shop-friendly hardcover book.