hardwood
Every article and hero in Arborpedia that touches this subject.
№ 219TreesHop-Hornbeam: Iron Wood and Papery Hops
A small, tough understorey tree with wood dense enough to sink and fruit clusters that look like hops — one of many trees called ironwood.
Jul 2026Read →
№ 267TreesLignum Vitae: The Wood That Oils Itself and Sinks Like Stone
The hardest, densest commercial timber on Earth — self-lubricating with its own resin, it ran the propeller-shaft bearings of ships and submarines, and was once sold as a cure for everything.
Jul 2026Read →
№ 278TreesMahogany: The Furniture Wood a Single Moth Keeps Wild
The rich red timber that defined fine furniture — logged toward scarcity, listed on CITES, and impossible to grow in plantations because a small caterpillar destroys every seedling.
Jul 2026Read →
№ 376TreesQuebracho: The Axe-Breaker That Tanned the World's Leather
A South American tree whose name means 'axe-breaker' — with wood so hard and dense it sinks, and a bark and heartwood so rich in tannin they tanned much of the world's leather, at the cost of a vanishing forest.
Jul 2026Read →
№ 487TreesTeak: The Weatherproof Timber That Built the World's Ships
The premier tropical hardwood — self-oiling, rot-proof, dimensionally stable — that panelled navies and decked yachts, and the plantation crop that now supplies it.
Jul 2026Read →