Soft and hardwood is there a list which is which?

[swinny]

Is there a list or anything where i can find out which tree's are soft wood and which are hard wood, also the differences?

 

Cheers all

[Ben90]

Softwood is wood formed within conifers, or gymnosperms, such as yew, cypress, pine, spruce etc. and most often use sap

 

Hardwood is wood cut from angiosperms, those are most commonly broad-leaved trees such as oak, ash and beech, lime the list goes on

 

The names can suggest to some that softwood is soft, and hardwood is hard. This is not the case. It's all to do with how the 2 different types of trees reproduce and 'lay down' their cellulose and lignin to create wood, nothing to do with their comparative strength. Balsa wood, which is an angiosperm, is a hardwood but is very soft and brittle, whereas yew is a softwood (gymnosperm), but is very dense and strong.

Edited June 27, 2010 by Ben90

[Ben Ballard]

:001_smile:hi mate,here is a start for you, hardwood = broadleafs

softwood = conifers

[chris cnc]

wikipedia has such a list:

 

List of woods - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[swinny]

excellent bit of info there chaps good start for me there, greatly appreciated

[Ben Ballard]

:001_smile:a good difference is hardwoods as a general rule will coppice grow back from a cut stump softwoods dont but there are 2 that do yew is one and the other is the coastal redwood of the west coast north america california, hope thats some use to you swinny

[s.varty]

Is there a list or anything where i can find out which tree's are soft wood and which are hard wood, also the differences?

 

Cheers all

 

I may be wrong (i usually am).

 

softwood bears a cone, hardwoods dont. cant be that simple.

[davetaz]

Don't alders bear cones?

[RobRainford]

Don't alders bear cones?

 

 

 

I believe alders produce catkins. Being in the betulaceae family

[Kat1e]

I believe alders produce catkins. Being in the betulaceae family

 

Yeah they have catkins but they have teeny tiny cones too?