Are Elm Trees Hardwood?

People use the lumber from elm trees to make many things, including furniture. However, describing the furniture may be slightly difficult unless you understand the qualities of lumbers such as hardwood and softwood and the divisions inside those classifications.

Softwood Versus Hardwood

The terms "hardwood" and "softwood" do not actually refer to the property of the wood itself, but the type of tree from which the wood came. Hardwood comes from deciduous trees that lose their leaves in the fall. Softwood comes from evergreen, coniferous trees.

Soft Hardwood Versus Hard Hardwood

You can differentiate lumber even further once you have established whether it is hardwood or softwood. Inside those divisions, you can classify it yet again into hard hardwood and soft hardwood. This refers to the nature of the lumber. For example, balsa wood, which comes from a hardwood tree, is softer and easier to carve than hickory, which also comes from a hardwood tree. Therefore balsa would be classified as a "soft hardwood" while hickory is classified as a "hard hardwood."

Elm Trees

Elm trees are a type of deciduous tree. They change color and lose their leaves in the fall making them a hardwood tree. The wood of elm trees is softer than other hardwood trees. Elm trees are therefore classified as soft hardwoods.

The names hardwood and softwood can be deceiving, and they don't actually refer to the strength or consistency of the wood. Although the wood of most softwood trees is less dense than hardwoods and often contains more air pockets, whether a tree is a hardwood and softwood actually depends on the way that trees reproduce. Softwood trees are known as gymnosperms and reproduce by producing cones that contain pollen. Hardwoods, however, are known as angiosperms. Most deciduous trees reproduce in this way and are hardwoods.