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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff from house stuff works dot com where

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Speaker 1: smart happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question, what

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Speaker 1: is the difference between a hardwood and a soft wood?

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Speaker 1: When we talk about a hardwood floor, what are we

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Speaker 1: actually talking about? As it turns out, a hardwood is

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Speaker 1: not necessarily a harder material. It's not more dense or

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Speaker 1: somehow stronger, And in the same way, a softwood is

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Speaker 1: not necessarily a softer material, meaning less dense or softer

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Speaker 1: or less strong. For example, balsa wood is one of

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Speaker 1: the lightest, least dense woods. There is easily dented with

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Speaker 1: your fingernail, and it's considered a hardwood. So what's going

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Speaker 1: on here? The distinction between hardwood and softwood actually has

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Speaker 1: to do with plant reproduction. All trees reproduced by producing seeds,

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Speaker 1: but the seeds structure varies. Hardwood trees are angiosperms, plants

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Speaker 1: that produce seeds with some sort of covering. This might

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Speaker 1: be a fruit like an apple or a hard shell

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Speaker 1: like an acorn. Soft Woods, on the other hand, are

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Speaker 1: gymnas sperms. These plants let seeds fall to the ground

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Speaker 1: as is, with no covering. Pine trees, which grows seeds

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Speaker 1: in hard cones fall into this category. In conifers, like pines,

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Speaker 1: these seeds are released into the wind once they mature.

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Speaker 1: This spreads the plants seed over a wider area. For

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Speaker 1: the most part, angiosperm trees lose their leaves during cold weather,

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Speaker 1: while gymnasperms trees keep their leaves all year round. So

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Speaker 1: it's also accurate to say that evergreens are soft woods

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Speaker 1: and deciduous trees or hardwoods, the hardwood saw wood terminology

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Speaker 1: does make some sense. Evergreens do tend to be less

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Speaker 1: dense than deciduous trees, and therefore they're easier to cut,

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Speaker 1: while most hardwoods tend to be more dense and therefore sturdier.

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Speaker 1: But as the classification of Boston wood demonstrates, there's no

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Speaker 1: minimum weight requirement to become a hardwood. For more on

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Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, does that how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot Com and don't forget to check out the

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