Where Do Hardwood And Softwood Come From

So where do the names hardwood and softwood come from.

Where do hardwood and softwood come from. Hardwood trees are more varied than softwoods and there are about. The conifers such as pines firs and redwoods contrasted with the hardwood or deciduous trees. Hardwood trees take a longer time to grow than softwood trees. These trees will not shed their leaves during winter and they bear cones or uncovered seeds that fall to the ground and germinate.

Primary differences between softwood hardwood. In general hardwood comes from a deciduous tree which loses its leaves annually and softwood comes from a conifer which usually remains evergreen. In all my years as a timber consultant the most reoccurring questions surround hardwood and softwood. 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.

So how do you go about determining one from another and how are they characterised. While the questions come from various people in different occupations the questions are usually. While we already covered a simplistic view of the critical differences between hardwood and softwood trees earlier let s give you a clear definition of. Softwood and hardwood are distinguished botanically in terms of their reproduction not by their end use or appearance.

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. On the other hand softwood comes from coniferous trees which we call evergreens. Hardwood is wood from deciduous trees and broad leaf evergreen trees. Hardwood originates from deciduous trees that shed leaves during winter.

For instance balsa wood is notably light and pliable but it s classed as a hardwood because it is deciduous. Softwood comes from trees like spruce or pine. There is a bit of truth to the terminology as many evergreens tend to be slightly less dense than their deciduous counterparts. Hardwood is contrasted to softwood which comes from conifers cone bearing seed plants.

However this isn t universally true. Generally speaking wood is often put into one of two categories. All hardwoods are angiosperms flowering plants the largest group of land plants. Tracheids perform the same function as the pores in hardwood trees and also produce sap which protects the trees from pests and transports water and other essential elements necessary for growth.

The hardwood softwood distinction is a general designation and does not literally refer to the hardness of the wood since some conifers have harder wood than certain hardwoods. One of the botanical groups of trees that in most cases have needle like or scale like leaves. Unlike hardwoods softwoods do not have pores but instead contain linear tubes known as tracheids which supply nutrients for growth.