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document updated 9 years ago, on Sep 23, 2015

Different ways to tell what wood looks like:

botanical identification field guides, based on leaves/bark/flowers [1] [2]
look at the endgrain under a 10x magnifier [1] [2] [3]
wood odor

Resources for identifying wood:

wood-database.com — focused on woodworkers identifying wood after it goes through the lumber mill
woodanatomy.ch — covers macroscopic features, and the author(s) are also versed in microscopy

Physiology of endgrain wood:

softwood vs hardwood
- softwood = conifers (NOT necessarily softer than hardwoods, this is more of a physiological distinction than a strength distinction)
- hardwood has large pores / vessels [2]
heartwood vs sapwood
earlywood vs latewood, AKA springwood vs summerwood — earlywood is lighter, latewood is darker

plant morphology identification

Dichotomous keys / identification databases:

Wikipedia articles:

Elsewhere: