(pronounced /“wɛŋɡeɪ/ WENG-gay) is a tropical timber, very dark in color with a distinctive figure and a strong partridge pattern. The wood is heavy and hard, giving great structure and integrity to each pair. Due to its bold appearance, it has become a choice selction for a wide range of applications. It also gives its name to the colour wenge. Wenge is the product of the Millettia laurentii tree. Native to the Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea.

Walnuts (genus Juglans) are plants in the family Juglandaceae. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meters tall (about 30–130 ft), with pinnate leaves 200–900 millimetres long (7–35 in), with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnuts (Pterocarya), but not the hickories (Carya) in the same family.

The 21 species in the genus range across the north temperate Old World from southeast Europe east to Japan, and more widely in the New World from southeast Canada west to California and south to Argentina. The Latin name, Juglans, derives from Jupiter glans, “Jupiter’s acorn”: figuratively, a nut fit for a god.

The word walnut derives from Old English wealhhnutu, literally “foreign nut”, wealh meaning “foreign” (wealh is akin to the terms Welsh and Vlach; see Walha and History of the term Vlach). The walnut was so called because it was introduced from Gaul and Italy. The Latin name for the walnut was nux Gallica, “Gallic nut”.

Acer (pronounced /ˈeɪsər/) is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as Maple.

Maples are variously classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, or together with the Hippocastanaceae included in the family Sapindaceae. Modern classifications, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, favour inclusion in Sapindaceae. The type species of the genus is Acer pseudoplatanus (Sycamore Maple).

There are approximately 125 species, most of which are native to Asia, with a number also appearing in Europe, northern Africa, and North America.

The word Acer is derived from a Latin word meaning “sharp’, referring to the characteristic points on maple leaves. It was first applied to the genus by the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort in 1700. A red maple leaf is the prominent feature of the flag of Canada.

Heartwood (or old xylem) is typically the center trunk section of a tree and as a result of tylosis, has become more resistant to decay. Tylosis is the deposition of chemical substances (a genetically programmed process). Once heartwood formation is complete, the heartwood is dead. Some uncertainty still exists as to whether heartwood is truly dead, as it can still chemically react to decay organisms, but only once.

Usually heartwood looks different; in that case it can be seen on a cross-section, usually following the growth rings in shape. Heartwood may (or may not) be much darker than living wood. It may (or may not) be sharply distinct from the sapwood. However, other processes, such as decay, can discolor wood, even in woody plants that do not form heartwood, with a similar color difference, which may lead to confusion.

Bamboo is actually not a wood at all. It part of a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family.

Bamboos are also the fastest growing woody plants in the world. In bamboo, as with other grasses, the internodal regions of the plant stem are hollow and the vascular bundles in the cross section are scattered throughout the stem instead of in a cylindrical arrangement. The dicotyledonous woody xylem is also absent. The absence of secondary growth wood causes the stems of monocots, even of palms and large bamboos, to be columnar rather than tapering.

They are capable of growing up to 60 cm (24 in.) or more per day due to a unique rhizome-dependent system. However, this astounding growth rate is highly dependent on local soil and climatic conditions. Bamboos are of notable economic and cultural significance in East Asia and South East Asia where the stems are used extensively in everyday life as building materials and as a highly versatile raw product, and the shoots as a food source.