Chinese named woods according to their appearance, colour and smell, regardless of what types of trees they came from. As a result, sometimes more than one species of tree was called by the same name, providing that the timber they yielded fulfilled the requisite criteria. This resulted in timber from the same tree but cut at different angles or from different parts potentially classified under different names.
Hardwoods
Hongmu
Huanghuali
Jichimu
Tielimu
Zitan
Softwoods
Huamu
Jumu
Hongmu
A dark brown wood, sometimes known as black wood, hongmu is one of the most common hardwoods. It was used extensively for furniture from the mid-Qing dynasty, as supplies of huanghuali began to dwindle.
Hongmu can be difficult to distinguish from huanghuali and can resemble Zitan.
Huanghuali
A member of the rosewood family, this was the principle hardwood used for furniture making in the mid-Ming to early Qing dynasties. It varies in colour from pale honey to dark purple-brown. It is often richly grained, it can be beautifully figured and was available in planks of considerable size.
In premodern times this wood was known as huali. The modifier~huang was added to describe the old huali wood whose surfaces had mellowed to a yellowish tone due to long exposure to light.
Jichimu
Jichimu is a hardwood with strongly grained patterns and lines of purple and yellow. It also has deep brown and gray patterns which, when cut tangentially, are said to resemble bird feathers.
Old jichimu (laojichimu) was rarely seen after the middle of the Qing dynasty
Tielimu
Tielimu literally means "strength of iron wood" and is the oldest hardwood indigenous to China. The wood resembles Jichimu but is coarser, more open in grain, and predominantly grayish black.
It also lacks the contrasting colours found in Jichimu. Furniture made of Tielimu often has a thick quality, with little or no carved decoration.
Zitan
This member of the rosewood family is considered to be the most distinguished cabinet wood. It has an extremely fine texture, which is especially suitable for intricate carving.
A closely grained hardwood varying in colour from reddish-brown to purple black, Zitan has a deep lustrous surface and often contains "crab claw markings".
Zitan is the heaviest of the hardwoods, and the most closely grained and the hardest. When worked the wood becomes a bright orange red. For most part the grain is straight, though occasionally can be found with small wavy curls.
Huamu
Numerous varieties of huamu exist, but this softwood is now considered extremely rare, and is therefore very expensive. Its fragile grain means that jointed pieces will tend to split over time.
The light brown, close-grained Jipihua is courser in texture and is found in Hubei, Liaoning and Jilin.
Jumu
Jumu tends to be strong and is an excellent wood for wood-workers. Jumu furniture is much valued by collectors and craftsmen because of its artistic and historical importance.
Southern elm trees are found throughout China, but particularly in Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces.
Wood Used In Chinese Antique Furniture
English Birch / Pinyin huamu
Properties
Birch has smooth, resinous, varicoloured or white bark, marked by horizontal pores (lenticels), which usually peels horizontally in thin sheets, especially on young trees. On older trunks the thick, deeply furrowed bark breaks into irregular plates.
It is one of the toughest American woods, with fine grain and pleasing light tone similar to maple. Birch can offer a variety of grain patterns (straight, curly, and wavy) and can be stained to resemble walnut or mahogany.
Birch trees of the family's representative genus produce close-grained wood of uniform texture that is used in furniture, flooring, plywood, and veneers. It has a medium brown heartwood with a light cream colored sapwood.
Camphor / zhangmu
Camphor occurs in the camphor laurel, Cinnamomum camphora, common in China, Taiwan, and Japan.
Camphor is used in Chinese furnishings not only for its beautiful grain, but also because it acts similar to cedar in deterring moths (hence its wide use in storage trunks.)
One of the oldest spices, Chinese cinnamon (cassia), is produced in the bark of C. cassia. Another species is used medicinally
Cedar / nanmu
Cedar comes from a family of trees having aromatic, often red or red-tinged wood that in many cases is decay-resistant and insect-repellent. Cedarwood is light, soft, resinous, and durable, even when in contact with soil or moisture.
It is a fragrant, knotty softwood used mainly to line chests and drawers.
Chinese Catalpa / qiumu
Any of 11 species of trees in the genus Catalpa (family Bignoniaceae), native to eastern Asia, eastern North America, and the West Indies. Catalpas have large, attractive leaves and showy, white, yellowish, or purplish flowers. The catalpa fruit is a long cylindrical pod bearing numerous seeds with white tufts of hair at each end.
The common catalpa is C. bignonioides, which yields a durable timber and is one of the most widely planted ornamental species.
Cypress / baimu
Cypress is distributed throughout warm-temperate and subtropical regions of Asia, Europe, and North America. Their bark is sometimes smooth, but in most species it separates into thin plates or strips that may be shed from the tree. The bark is usually aromatic.
This tree grows at the edges of swamps or streams, and its roots form natural crooks above the water. The crooks are frequently used in the construction of wooden boats.
The wood is light yellow to light brown, and is very resistant to rot and decay.
Ebony / heitanmu
The best ebony is very heavy, almost black, and derived from heartwood only. Because of its color, durability, hardness, and ability to take a high polish, ebony is used for cabinetwork and inlaying, piano keys, knife handles, and turned articles.
It was employed by the ancient kings of India for sceptres and images and, because of its supposed antagonism to poison, for drinking cups.Herodotus states that the Ethiopians every three years sent a tribute of 200 logs of ebony to Persia.
Its closeness of grain, great hardness, and fine hazel-brown colour, mottled and striped with black, render it valuable for veneering and furniture making.
Elm / yumu Ulmus, Northern Elm
Elm wood is used in many Chinese furniture pieces for its durability and wide grain.
Light yellow to brown color.
Traditionally the most common softwood used in the manufacture of furniture in Northern China. The sapwood tends to be yellowish-brown in tone, whereas the heartwood is typically more of a chestnut brown color; both possess a striking, wave-like grain. This wood dries with difficulty, and is of medium density and hardness, making it an excellent medium for furniture manufacture.
South Elm / nanyu
Fir / shanmu
Mahogany / hongmu
Mahogany is one of the most popular wood types for furniture making and panelling in the US for its color and grain, and is also used in Chinese cabinets and desks for it's beauty and durability.
Pine / songmu
Redwood / hongmu
Rosewood / hualimu
Rosewood is a deep, ruddy brown to purplish-brown colour, richly streaked and grained with black resinous layers. It takes a fine polish but because of its resinous nature is difficult to work. The heartwood attains large dimensions, but squared logs or planks are never seen because before the tree arrives at maturity, the heartwood begins to decay, making it faulty and hollow at the centre.
Once much in demand by cabinetmakers and piano makers, the wood is still used to fashion xylophone bars, but waning supplies restrict its use in contemporary furniture making.
Sandalwood / zitanmu
Both tree and roots contain a yellow aromatic oil, called sandalwood oil, the odor of which persists for years in such articles as ornamental boxes, furniture, and fans made of the white sapwood.
Sandalwood trees have been cultivated since antiquity for their yellowish heartwood, which plays a major role in many Oriental funeral ceremonies and religious rites.
The trees are slow growing, usually taking about 30 years for the heartwood to reach an economically useful thickness.
Teak / youmu
Teak timber is valued in warm countries principally for its extraordinary durability. In India and in Burma, beams of the wood in good preservation are often found in buildings many centuries old, and teak beams have lasted in palaces and temples more than 1,000 years. The timber is practically imperishable under cover.
Teakwood is used for shipbuilding, fine furniture, door and window frames, wharves, bridges, cooling-tower louvres, flooring, panelling, railway cars, and venetian blinds. An important property of teak is its extremely good dimensional stability. It is strong, of medium weight, and of average hardness. Termites eat the sapwood but rarely attack the heartwood; it is not, however, completely resistant to marine borers.
Walnut / hetaomu
The dark, fine-grained wood of English and black walnuts is used for furniture, panelling, and gunstocks.
It's tough wood has a medium density and straight grain.
Willow / shuiquliumu
