How to distinguish whether a tree is softwood or hardwood? Many people don’t know how to distinguish. Today, the Kukesi cork product manufacturer will introduce how to distinguish.
One of the most famous and often used to explain this is the balsa wood. Although this wood is very light and has a soft texture, it may look like softwood, but in fact it is a hardwood. Similarly, yew is a kind of softwood, but the wood texture of yew is harder than that of many hardwood trees. So what is the basis for these classifications?
The fundamental basis for distinguishing whether a tree is hardwood or softwood is that the seed of a tree, if there is any form of mulch on the surface of the seed of a tree, such as the shell or the pulp of the fruit, then the tree should be classified as hardwood. On the contrary, If the seed of a tree falls only as the seed itself, then the tree is a kind of cork.
Professionally, seeds without coverage are called “gymnosperm”, derived from the ancient Greek derivative word “naked seed”.
And the seeds on the trees contain any covering, the term is “angiosperm”, also derived from the ancient Greek derivative word “vessel seed”. As mentioned before, there are different forms of protection on the outer skin of angiosperm seeds, such as acorns.
Angiosperms were proposed by German botanist Paul Hermann in 1690 to distinguish the seeds of different trees in plants.
Although the softness and hardness of trees are not distinguished by the toughness of a piece of wood, in most cases, hardwood is harder than softwood. But this also leaves a problem, how hard wood can be called hardwood.
The common measurement method is called Janka Hardness Test, which was introduced into industrial measurement in 1906. Related tests include measuring the force required to embed a 0.444-inch steel ball half the diameter of the wood. By taking the average of multiple measurements, the average hardness between the center of the wood and the edge of the tree can be obtained through this test. At the same time, the test also includes two aspects. The hardness test by pressing the steel ball on the front side becomes the “side hardness”. The hardness of the steel ball pressed to the side is called “end hardness”. However, in most cases, the marked hardness value you see is “side hardness”.
In order to satisfy curiosity, according to the tube hardness test, the current soft tree is the Cuipo tree with a hardness of only 22lbf, which is lower for the already very soft balsa wood (100lbf). Interestingly, Cuipo is also classified as hardwood.
