Books to Identify Trees/Wood?

Try the book "world Woods In Color" by William A Lincoln.

Hello Mowgli,

The best book we have in our library that meets exactly what you?re wanting only has 279 species documented. This is a newly revised (Second Edition) and is called "A Guide to Useful Woods of the World" by James Flynn, Jr. and Charles Holder. We bought our copy at the IWCS Annual Meeting in August directly from Chuck Holder (no kin just a kinred spirit). If you want to contact Chuck Holder, his e-mail address is: snipped-for-privacy@shaw.ca.

Another book that I?ve had for several years is, ?World Woods in Color? by William A Lincoln. This book contains information on 275 commercial woods from world wide sources. The book is published by Linden Publishing Inc., 3845 N. Blackstone, Fresno, CA 93726 USA. It isn?t as comprehensive as the other book, but does have some of the information that you?re looking for.

You might also consider one or both of the CD's on wood: Woods of the World (contains information on 900 species of wood) and The Wood Explorer (contains information on about 1600 species of wood).

Woods of the World is produced by:

Forest World Group

110 Merchants Row Rutland, VT 05701 TEL: 802-773-6900 Web Site:

The Wood Explorer is produced by Timber Solutions, Inc. Web Site:

I own both of these CD's and find them both excellent for learning about wood.

Fred Holder

On 27 Dec 2003 18:56:20 -0800, Fred Holder's fingers viciously stabbed at an innocent keyboard to form the now famous if slightly awkward haiku:

snip

It has thorough, accurate descriptions to identify trees, not just the timber? I want to know what kind of tall gray thing with branches that is down the street, etc without cutting it up. I saw good reviews for the book you mention, I just need to know that it suits my purpose.

Thanks for the help,

Mowgli

In article , Mowgli@swinginthrudajunglew/outa.gov says... but does have some of the information that you?re looking for.

Hey Mowgli... Sounds like the book you're looking for is one of the "Audubon Field Guide to Trees". There are two or three of them, for different regions of the US/North America. The ID is mostly by leaf type, but has good color photos of bark, flowers, etc. Once you get an ID, there is a cross-reference to info in the second 2/3 of the book.

A couple of the field guides, in combo with the more dedicated "timber & grain" books should help ID almost any chunk of wood that comes across the pile.

HtH, Vic

BTW- the guides are not that expensive, about US$10 retail- lots less in the 2nd-hand shops or online.

Yes, this would be the book set I'd recommend for id-ing trees from leaves, bark, flowers, and fruit/cones. Even though I live in Oregon, I refer to both my Eastern and Western North America copies frequently - trees move around quite a bit you know.

For id-ing lumber, I think the newly republished "The Wood Book" ($65+/-) is a beautiful book with images of flatsawn, quartersawn and riftsawn samples plus short descriptions.

_____ American Association of Woodturners Cascade Woodturners Assoc., Portland, Oregon Northwest Woodturners, Tigard, Oregon _____

I live in Indiana and am fortunate to have Purdue Forestry available. There is a website I use for Indiana, but might be useful to you. At least it doesn't cost.

Third the Field Guide series, but don't expect it to answer all your questions. As Owen alludes to below, some trees are where they shouldn't be. Before we became sensitized to the dangers of exotics, we used to have people planting what grew well and looked nice. Kudzu and pepper tree were a couple of spectacular boners, but I understand there are a few slow-growing black walnut trees planted on the northern shore of Lake Michigan which may yield some lumber someday.

As to identification of tropical timber on the shelf at Woodcraft - forget it. Between common names and common characteristics, it's a fool's errand.

For times when that lets you down (and it lets me down rather frequently in these parts) make friends with people in your area who know dendrology or forestry.

I thought I knew trees after years of walking around woods in this region (the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia) with my field guides in tote, then I met another Cub Scout dad on a camping trip who *really* knows trees. I hang out with him every chance I get. He's filled in a lot of gaps, and taught me a lot.

Another good resource would be universities all over the country who put up useful web sites. If you dig a bit, you can find tree ID keys. I've never found any one chart that was comprehensive enough to cover everything, but they're an excellent way to identify what they can identify with a high degree of precision.

One such is here... The Dendrology department at Virginia Tech:

've found other, similar such before I'm pretty sure. This one is in myback yard, so that's why I remembered it.

Hi Mowgli,

Phil's suggestion is a good one. The information available on the internet exceeds that of hundreds of books. Do a Google search under "Trees of______". Fill in the state of your choice and read until your eyes get bleary. If you feel like you have to have a hard copy in your hands, you would be hard pressed to beat Owen's recommendation of "Audubon Field Guide to Trees".

Ron Robinson East Texas

Don't blame me, it was Victor's recommendation first. ;)

_____ American Association of Woodturners Cascade Woodturners Assoc., Portland, Oregon Northwest Woodturners, Tigard, Oregon _____

This website seems to do what you want.