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The classic choice in tropical timber The first mahogany to reach England was in the shape of ships—those of the Spanish Armada that later succumbed to the English fleet’s cannonballs. That was in 1588, more than 30 years after the Spanish explorer Hernando Cortes discovered mahogany in the Caribbean. Although English shipbuilders marveled at the…

The West’s mountain-climbing conifer If ever a tree loved to live in the mountains, it’s the western white pine. You’ll find it getting along quite happily in the high country of California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Given western white pine’s preference for altitude, it may seem strange that this species ranks among…

The native aristocrat Ancient Romans loved wal nuts, and thought so highly of the meaty fruit that they planted the tree throughout south central Europe and England. Attention always focused on walnut for its nut crop, while oak prevailed as the choice for furniture. In America, though, native black walnut has always been prime stock….

The Pacific Northwest’s most abundant hardwood Just as a connoisseur of Eastern ham insists that it be smoked only with hickory, the salmon fisherman of the Pacific Northwest demands his fish be cooked over alder coals. That’s entirely fitting to this tree that prefers living close to water. As the most abundant hardwood species of…

The do-everything wood that’s priced right Ask a forester familiar with eastern hardwoods about yellow poplar, and he’ll talk about tuliptree. And when a New England architect specifies whitewood, he most likely means yellow poplar. Talk to a lumberman about yellow poplar, though, and you’ll both speak the same language because this tree represents the…

The weatherproof stock of Old Ironsides, barrels, and mission furniture When England sought wood to rebuild her once-great naval fleet, eyes turned to the American colonies’ forests of white oak because by the 1700s, English oaks had all been felled. British ship-builders, though, scorned New World oak as inferior. Proud American builders knew better, and…

From men-of-war to kitchen cabinets, always number one To England’s ancient druids, the oak symbolized strength. Warlike Norsemen even cherished pieces of the wood as charms to protect them from evil. But to the Greeks, Romans, and later seafaring nations, oak meant sturdy men-of-war and reliable merchant ships. In fact, England and France reserved whole…

Hard as a rock, but how sweet it is! Acer, part of the maple family’s latin, scientific name, means hard or sharp. And to the Romans, the wood was just that. From it, they made lance and pike shafts for battle. It was furniture, though, that bestowed the term « rock hard » on this traditional stock. As…

Although today we think of black cherry as one of the classic furniture woods, it wasn’t always that way. Settlers in the Appalachian Mountains, for example, valued the tree’s fruit more than its wood. They dubbed the tree « rum cherry » because from its dark purple cherries they brewed a potent liquor. Also, black cherry’s inner…

The shimmering queen of the north There’s no sight in the woods that quite compares to a stand of yellow birch. The bronze-barked trees glisten against their neighbors. Light bounces off them, as if reflected from metal. The beauty of yellow birch on the stump probably captivated colonial New England craftsmen, too. But, it was…