"P van Rijckevorsel" wrote:
1. Some Frequently Asked Questions:
[snip]
Q: "Cherry" is the wood from the Cherry tree. Right?
A: False. The tree that cherries grow on does yield a classic wood,
called cherry, but this has always been fairly rare. There is a US timber
tree that yields a look-alike wood almost as good, and certainly a lot more
available. This is called cherry for convenience.

Doug Miller schreef
Well... IMO it's a bit of a stretch to say, categorically, "false". The
two trees are very closely related.

+ + +
Depends on what you call closely related. To most people Almonds, Cherries,
Peaches, Plums, etc are quite distinct, and they have been in different
genera (on and off) for centuries. At the moment they are all in Prunus.
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The fruit tree is Prunus avium [syn Cerasus avium]. The North American
timber tree is Prunus serotina [syn Padus serotinus], and it does bear
edible [overstatement] cherry-like fruit, although it's much more commonly
consumed by birds [understatement] than by humans.

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A more closely run thing would be walnut wood and walnuts. The American
walnut tree (Juglans nigra) is not the tree yielding the walnuts bought in
the store, which should be from the real walnut tree (Juglans regia). Both
species have been in the same genus forever and the seeds from Juglans nigra
are edible (also IIRC they are the walnut in walnut ice cream).
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[snip]
Q: Steel is stronger than wood. Right?
A: Depends. A piece of steel of a certain size will almost always be
stronger as a piece of wood the same size. A steel rod of a particular
length and mass as compared to a rod of wood the same length and mass ...

Depends on the conditions it's exposed to as well. One of my woodworking
books has a dramatic photo of the aftermath of a major building fire,
showing steel I-beams softened to the point of failure by the heat of the
fire -- bent in parabolas, draped over and hanging from a heavily charred
but still intact wooden beam.

Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

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Quite
PvR