Hardwood not hard, softwood not soft! (necessarily)

[GGGNH]

Funny, my dendrology course and books from college support Doug. Of course, 27 years of experience in the lumber business, softwood and hardwood, don't make me right either.

GGG

[tinacci336]

Here in Tennessee we have a lot of both hardwood and softwood. But if your half drunk and try to drive on our winding roads at 60 MPH you will nine times out of ten find that both are pretty hard when they pry you and your vehicle from around their trunks. Happens all the time. Some just never understand that those softwoods are hardwoods too.. Jack

[Harry K]

To avoid the pedantry: If they are deciduous they are hardwood by lumber definition. Same error I made in the original post.

[Doug Miller]

Well, that too: wood is typically sold by volume, not by weight, so the denser it is, the more wood you're getting in a given volume. Of course, the seller usually factors that into the price, too: a rick of poplar or silver maple

*should* be much cheaper than a rick of hickory or white oak.

[Doug Miller]

You still don't have it right.

Very, very few deciduous trees are softwoods. Most deciduous trees are hardwoods. Most hardwoods are deciduous. Most softwoods are evergreen. Most [temperate-zone] evergreens are softwood.

*All* angiosperms are hardwoods, and vice versa, by definiton. *All* gymnosperms are softwoods, and vice versa, by definition.

Got it now?

[Doug Miller]

The principle is the same. Since you seem to have trouble grasping the difference, I thought it would help if I picked examples in which the difference is obvious. If that only confused you further, my apologies.

You're being waaaaay too literal. I recommend Metamucil.

"Hardwood" and "softwood" are lumber industry terms, so it's hardly surprising that those terms are not accepted by botanists.

However -- they are *exactly* equivalent to terms that *are* accepted by botanists.

So what's the difference, in practical terms?

Metamucil, George.

[George E. Cawthon]

I wrote an answer to each one of your statements but then said the hell with it, I'm not being paid to correct your sloppy statements, so I erased them. But I left the comment on two of your statements.

Now you have it backwards, the lumber industry doesn't define evergreens. Kind of obvious, which trees are evergreen huh? However softwoods (if you softwoods as gymnosperms) in the temperate zone are mostly evergreens. But that is just a fact not a lumber industry definition.

I would imagine any well qualified timber or lumber representative would recognize the distinction made above and recognize its importance.

No, the lumber industry defines the term "hardwoods" lumber from an angiosperm. The reverse (defining angiosperms as hardwood) is not true since the lumber industry doesn't define angiosperms, it accepts definitions common to taxonomic botany.

The lumber industry recognizes that its definition of hardwood and softwood (which is based on the cell structure found in angiosperms and gymnosperms) has short comings.

[George E. Cawthon]

You can't be that dense!

[Doug Miller]

Still false, despite you having snipped my correction.

Translation: you finally figured out you were wrong about those, but won't admit it.

Translation: you're still confused about those two.

I didn't say that it did. Please read more carefully before you respond, next time. Obviously I'm going to have to spell this out for you very carefully.

The lumber industry defines softwoods and hardwoods. Most temperate-zone evergreen species are regarded by the lumber industry as softwoods.

Got it now? If you still disagree, it's up to you to provide counter-examples: find a significant number (enough to contradict the generalization "most") of temperate-zone evergreens that the lumber industry regards as hardwoods.

You're obviously totally ignorant of lumber industry classifications. Please educate yourself before continuing this debate.

And I, in turn, imagine that any well qualified timber or lumber representative would laugh at your pedantic quibbling and tell you to get a life.

OK, sorry I confused you by not spelling it out every step of the way. See if this is easier to understand:

By the lumber industry's definition of the term "hardwood", all angiosperms are hardwoods, and all hardwoods are angiosperms.

Do you understand now?

[Doug Miller]

You said that "density pretty much equates to hardness." And that simply isn't true.

So who's the dense one?

[George E. Cawthon]

(Snipped)

Ok. I quit. You win. You're the best. I recognize that you are correct, probably are the head of the American lumber association, a master of intelligent debate, modest and easily accept when you make a mistake, always have been and always will be correct, master of the world, leader of free men.

Feel better now? Umm, that's a rhetoric question, since I withdraw.

>

[Doug Miller]

Ahh, I see you finally understand your errors now. Glad to help.

Promise?

[Brock Ulfsen]

Eucalypts are evergreen, and temporate zone, and hardwood. Almost no deciduous trees in Australia. Confers are rare here, except plantation stuff.

First define the geographic range of "lumber industry"...

...Brock.

[Farm1]

Hmmmm. I don't agree with that comment Brock. We do have lots of plantation conifers but we also have some wonderful and very plentiful (even if commercially insignificant) native conifers.

Think of last time you drove through the Pilliga Scrub. Lots and lots of conifers. And, being in Qld you should still see lots of Auricarias about. I love Auricarias.

[Doug Miller]

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know squat about Australian flora, and only a little bit more than that about your fauna... but you've hardly managed to contradict the statement that "most temperate-zone evergreens are softwoods".

[Steven]

Don't know... I sort of miss him in a strange kind of way......

S.

[Brock Ulfsen]

I live in the southeast, so the coastal "pines" are long gone and the others have very limited ranges. I see them as occassional street trees (Bunya's cost the local Council a fortune in de-nutting each year).

I can't think ever seeing a native conifer in the wild in the Southeast, feral plantation pines yes...

...Brock.

[Farm1]

He didn't even try to contradict your claim. He added information that you could have taken into your store of knowledge about temperate-zone trees that are hardwoods, not softwoods.

[Dennis]

I was looking through the Structures and Environment Handbook on this. It was covered in section 201 as follows:

"Hardwoods and softwoods. All native species are divided into two classes- hardwoods and softwoods. In general, hardwoods have broad leaves and are deciduous (shed their leaves each season). Softwoods are conifers and have scalelike leaves as in cedars or needlelike leaves as in pines. "Hardwood" and "softwood" do not describe the wood's hardness or softness."

Beyond this, I've never seen any tables covering a wood's sawability (difficulty to saw as an indication of "hardness".) If any measure could be applied, I would guess it would be related to either a wood's elastic modulus or compression perpendicular to grain. (There would have to be some common frame of reference which is common to both hardwoods and softwoods.)

You should be able to find values for most all hardwoods and softwoods in the "Wood Handbook" by the Forest Products Laboratory, Forest Service of US Dept of Agriculture. (Handbook #72)

[Dennis]

Ummm, not sure I could agree with your wood skills there Larry. In "Design Values for Wood Construction" (supplement to the National Design Specification for Wood Construction, which is the backbone of structural wood design & a referenced standard in the IBC & IRC) Douglas-Fir is listed as "Douglas-Fir-Larch" (American), "Douglas-Fir-Larch (north)" [Canadian] and "Douglas-Fir (south)" [American].

Douglas-Fir-Larch is the strongest of the Doug Firs.

Dennis