Soft and hardwood is there a list which is which?

[RobRainford]

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

 

 

i think they do also, they are persistent in the winter on common alders, italian alders and grey alders to my knowledge!

[Amelanchier]

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

 

Yup.

 

The terms Hardwood and Softwood come from the timber industry and are therefore generalisations to make life easy for the commercial retail of timber.

 

As has been said above this tends to mean;

Conifer = Softwood

Everything else = Hardwood

 

However, all generalisations break down when you look at the extremes - as Ben90 indicates, you can have hard softwood and soft hardwood.

 

But, the same goes for the other general labels of Broadleaf and Conifer. Some "broadleaves" have narrow leaves (Gleditsia / Mimosa?) and produce cones (Alnus!). Angiosperm / Gynosperm? Just another set of labels essentially based on seed morphology. Seems to be synonymous with conifers and broadleaves until someone brings up Ginkgo...

 

Basically, when the end user wants to buy a door, he'll / she'll find it easier to distinguish timber quality (and therefore product value) based on a nice simple term rather than on the mode of sexual reproduction or foliage characteristic of the host species which both carry similar overlaps and errors...

[kev7937]

: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

 

I think poss Thuja as well.?.?

[Ben90]

Seems to be synonymous with conifers and broadleaves until someone brings up Ginkgo...

 

Aah Ginkgo biloba, the duck-tailed platypus of the tree world.