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Color/Appearance: Heartwood is light brown to gray. Wide sapwood is a contrasting light yellow. Susceptible to blue-gray fungal staining if not processed promptly. It’s overall appearance is similar to ash (Fraxinus spp.), and it’s sometimes used in place of ash.
Grain/Texture: Grain is usually straight or occasionally slightly interlocked, with a very coarse uneven texture.
Endgrain: Ring-porous; 2-3 rows of large to very large earlywood pores; small to medium latewood pores in wavy tangential bands; tyloses common; parenchyma vasicentric, banded (marginal); medium to wide rays, spacing wide.
Rot Resistance: Rated as non-durable to perishable. Also susceptible to fungal discoloration and insect attack.
Workability: Generally good working characteristics with both hand and machine tools, though smaller pieces with knots, or sections with interlocked grain can pose challenges in machining. Responds superbly to steam bending. Glues, turns, stains, and finishes well.
Odor: Can have a mild odor when worked.
Allergies/Toxicity: Hackberry has been reported to cause skin irritation. See the articles Wood Allergies and Toxicityand Wood Dust Safetyfor more information.
Pricing/Availability: Not widely available outside its natural range, Hackberry is regularly harvested and sold as utility lumber at a modest price within its natural range. Spalted and/or stained pieces are sometimes sold at an increased price. Lumber is sold interchangeably with the closely related Sugarberry (Celtis laevigata).
Sustainability: This wood species is not listed in the CITES Appendices or on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Common Uses: Furniture, boxes/crates, veneer, turned objects, and bent parts.
Comments: In terms of outward appearance, Hackberry bears a close resemblance to ash; anatomically, however, it’s closest to elm (Ulmus spp.), with the pores arranged in wavy tangential bands (ulmiform arrangement), which is characteristic of the elms. Hackberry is reputed to among the very best woods for steam bending among hardwoods native to the United States and Canada.
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