The Softest Hardwood

Other soft hardwoods.

The softest hardwood.

On a hardness scale alder ranks just above pine and poplar. And while this example lists just some of the most popular hardwood species there are hundreds of varieties representing the north american hardwood population. Classifying wood as either a hardwood or softwood comes down to its physical structure and makeup and so it is overly simple to think of hardwoods as being hard and durable compared to soft and workable softwoods. Although classified as a hardwood alder is one of the softest of all hardwoods and is more commonly referred to as a semi hardwood.

However the wood is omitted from this list for two main reasons. The hardest commercially available hardwood is hickory and it is five times harder than aspen one of the soft hardwoods. First it is virtually unobtainable and not commercially available outside of its natural range in central south america. For example balsa wood is known as one of the softest and least dense types of wood yet it is categorized as hardwood.

This happens to be generally true but there are exceptions such as in the cases of wood from yew trees a softwood that is relatively hard and wood from balsa trees a. Because hardness is an important factor and hardness.