hardwood
Hardwood is wood from Flowering plant, angiosperm trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostl ...
produced by any of three trees, ''
Eucalyptus regnans
''Eucalyptus regnans'', known variously as mountain ash (in Victoria), giant ash or swamp gum (in Tasmania), or stringy gum, is a species of very tall forest tree that is native to the Australia states of Tasmania and Victoria. It is a straigh ...
'', ''
Eucalyptus obliqua
''Eucalyptus obliqua'', commonly known as messmate stringybark or messmate, but also known as brown top, brown top stringbark, stringybark or Tasmanian oak, is a species of tree that is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It has rough, stringy or ...
'' or ''
Eucalyptus delegatensis
''Eucalyptus delegatensis'', commonly known as alpine ash, gum-topped stringybark, white-top and in Victoria as woollybutt,Second paragraph of Boland, Douglas J. (1985). "Taxonomic revision of Eucalyptus delegatensis R.T.Baker (Myrtaceae)". Austr ...
'', when it is sourced from the
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
n state of
Tasmania
Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...
.
Despite the common name "oak", none of the species are in the genus ''
Quercus
An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...
'' or the oak family
Fagaceae
The Fagaceae (; ) are a family of flowering plants that includes beeches, chestnuts and oaks, and comprises eight genera with around 1,000 or more species. Fagaceae in temperate regions are mostly deciduous, whereas in the tropics, many species ...
.
The hardwood
timber
Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...
is light-coloured, ranging from straw to light reddish brown.
It is used in construction, including
panelling
Panelling (or paneling in the United States) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials.
Panelling was developed in antiquity ...
and
flooring
Flooring is the general term for a permanent covering of a floor, or for the work of installing such a floor covering. Floor covering is a term to generically describe any finish material applied over a floor structure to provide a walking surface. ...
, for
furniture
Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., Stool (seat), stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (table (furniture), tables), storing items, working, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Furnitur ...
, and also for reconstituted board and high quality
paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, Textile, rags, poaceae, grasses, Feces#Other uses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is dra ...
.
When sourced from
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India
* Victoria (state), a state of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital
* Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...
, the wood of ''Eucalyptus regnans'' and ''Eucalyptus delegatensis'' is called Victorian ash.
The species are also widely known by their common names. ''Eucalyptus obliqua'' is known as stringybark or messmate, ''Eucalyptus regnans'' is known as mountain ash, and the closely related ''Eucalyptus delegatensis'' is known as alpine ash or woollybutt.