Hardwood

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Hardwood

The term hardwood is used to describe wood

Wood

Wood is an organic material; in the strict sense wood is produced as secondary xylem in the stems of woody plants, notably trees but also shrubs, etc....
from non-monocot angiosperm

Flowering plant

The flowering plants or angiosperms are the most widespread group of Embryophytes. The flowering plants and the gymnosperms are the only extant groups of Spermatophyte....
tree

TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
s and for those trees themselves. These are usually broad-leaved; in temperate

Temperate

In geography, temperate or tepid latitudes of the globe lie between the tropics and the polar circles. The changes in these regions between summer and winter are generally mild, rather than extreme hot or cold....
and boreal

Boreal

Boreal may refer to*Northern, from Boreas, god of the North Wind in Greek mythology*Boreal climate, the climate found in a region of boreal forests, and designated Dfc, Dwc or Dsc in the K?ppen climate classification scheme....
latitude

Latitude

Latitude, usually denoted symbolically by the Greek letter phi gives the location of a place on Earth north or south of the equator. Lines of Latitude are the horizontal lines shown running east-to-west on maps ....
s they are mostly deciduous

Deciduous

Deciduous means falling off at maturity or tending to fall off and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe....
, but in tropics

Tropics

The Tropics, seated in the equatorial regions of the world, are limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately 23?26' N latitude, and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at 23?26' S latitude....
and subtropics

Subtropics

For information on the American literary journal, see Subtropics The subtropics are the Geographical zone of the Earth immediately north and south of the tropics zone, which is bounded by the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, at latitude 23.5? north and south....
mostly evergreen

Evergreen

In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant having leaf all year round. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage for part of the year....
.

Hardwood contrasts with softwood

Softwood

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Please i need a list of tropical woods and there taxonomic classification as softwood and hardwood

Hardwoods

Encyclopedia

The term hardwood is used to describe wood

Wood

Wood is an organic material; in the strict sense wood is produced as secondary xylem in the stems of woody plants, notably trees but also shrubs, etc....
from non-monocot angiosperm

Flowering plant

The flowering plants or angiosperms are the most widespread group of Embryophytes. The flowering plants and the gymnosperms are the only extant groups of Spermatophyte....
tree

TREE

Temperate

Boreal

Latitude

Deciduous

Tropics

Subtropics

Evergreen

Softwood

Softwood is timber obtained from coniferous trees . With the exception of bald cypress, tamarack, and larch, softwood trees are evergreens. Softwood is mostly obtained from the Baltic, Scandinavia, and North America and is the source of about 80% of the world's production of timber....
, which comes from conifer trees. On average, hardwood is of higher density and hardness than softwood, although there is an enormous variation in actual wood hardness in both groups, with the range in density in hardwoods completely including that of softwoods; some hardwoods (e.g. balsa) are softer than most softwoods, while yew

Yew

Yew may refer to:...
is an example of a hard softwood.

Common deciduous European and North American hardwoods include the oaks (Quercus spp.), beech (Fagus
Fagus

Fagus may refer to:* Fagus , a god of beech trees in Celtic mythology, especially in Gaul and the Pyrenees.* Fagus, the genus of beeches, and its ten species such as Fagus crenata, Fagus longipetiolata, etc....
spp.), ash (Fraxinus spp.), maple (Acer
Acer

Acer may refer to:* Acer , the genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as Maple, from the Latin word meaning sharp* Acer Inc., a Taiwan-based international computer company...
spp.) and cherry (Prunus
Prunus

Prunus is a genus of trees and shrubs, including the plums, cherry, peaches, apricots and almonds. It is traditionally placed within the rose family Rosaceae as a subfamily, the Prunoideae , but sometimes placed in its own family, the Prunaceae ....
spp.). Examples of European evergreen trees that yield specialty hardwoods (used in small volumes) include holly

European Holly

Ilex aquifolium is a species of holly native to western and southern Europe, northwest Africa and southwest Asia.It is an evergreen tree growing to 10-25 m tall and 40-80 cm trunk diameter, with smooth grey bark....
(Ilex aquifolium), boxwood (Buxus sempervirens
Buxus sempervirens

Buxus sempervirens is a flowering plant in the genus Buxus, native to western and southern Europe, northwest Africa, and southwest Asia, from southern England south to northern Morocco, and east through the northern Mediterranean region to Turkey....
) and holm oak

Holm Oak

The Holm Oak , also called Holly Oak or Evergreen Oak, is a large evergreen oak native to the Mediterranean region. It takes its name from wikt:holm, an ancient name for holly....
(Quercus ilex). Important tropical hardwoods include teak

Teak

Teak , is a genus of tropics hardwood trees in the family Verbenaceae, native to the south and southeast of Asia, and is commonly found as a component of monsoon forest vegetation....
(Tectona grandis), mahogany

Mahogany

The name mahogany is used when referring to numerous varieties of dark-colored wood, originally the wood of the species Swietenia mahagoni, known as West Indian or Cuban mahogany....
(Swietenia spp.), ebony

Ebony

Ebony is a general name for very dense black wood. In the strict sense it is yielded by several species in the genus Diospyros, but other heavy, black woods are sometimes also called ebony....
(Diospyros spp.) and lauan

Shorea

Shorea is a genus of about 196 species of mainly rainforest trees in the Family Dipterocarpaceae. The genus is named after Sir John Shore, the Governor-General of the British East India Company, 1793-1798....
(Shorea spp.).

Hardwoods are more varied than softwood. There are about a hundred times as many hardwoods as softwoods. The dominant feature separating hardwoods from softwoods is the presence of pores, or vessels

Vessel element

A vessel element is one of the cell types found in xylem, the water conducting tissue of plants. Vessel elements are typically found in the angiosperms but absent from most gymnosperms such as the conifers....
may show considerable variation in size, shape of perforation plates (simple, scalariform, reticulate, foraminate), and structure of cell wall (e.g. spiral thickenings).

Hardwoods are employed in a large range of applications including: construction

Construction

In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of multitasking....
, furniture

Furniture

Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects which may support the human body , provide storage, or hold objects on horizontal surfaces above the ground....
, flooring

Wood flooring

Wood flooring is a type of flooring made from the timber of hardwoods, or of spruce or hard pine. There are two basic manufactured types of hardwood....
, utensils, etc. Solid hardwood joinery tends to be expensive compared to softwood. In the past, tropical hardwoods were easily available but the supply of some species such as Burma teak and mahogany is now becoming restricted due to overexploitation. Cheaper "hardwood" doors, for instance, now consist of a thin veneer bonded to a core of softwood, plywood or medium-density fibreboard

Medium-density fibreboard

Medium-density fibreboard is an engineered wood product formed by breaking down softwood into wood fibers, often in a defibrator, combining it with wax and a resin binder, and forming panels by applying high temperature and pressure....
(MDF). Hardwoods can also be used in a variety of objects but mainly for furniture or musical instruments because of their density.

Hardwood

See also

Further reading

External links