No other native tree wood is as hard as the wood of the hornbeam. The hornbeam owes this to the fact that it was often planted as timber in the past. Today it is still used as parquet or in piano construction.

Hornbeam wood is good for furniture and firewood

The hardest wood in Europe

The hornbeam is also called hornbeam because its wood is very light - in contrast to the common beech, whose wood has a slightly reddish colour.

A cubic meter of hornbeam wood weighs 800 kilograms. This makes the hornbeam the heaviest and hardest wood that occurs naturally in Europe. It is also called ironwood or stone beech.

Use of the hornbeam earlier

Because of its hardness, hornbeam wood was used wherever stability was required. Examples of usage were:

  • wood screws
  • gears
  • spokes
  • axes
  • chopping blocks
  • sledge runners
  • ox yokes
  • tools

White scrubbed butter churns and milk cans were also made from hornbeam.

When iron became cheaper, it replaced the hornbeam, which was finally used almost exclusively as an ornamental tree or for enclosing pastures.

Hornbeam as a defensive hedge

Up until the Thirty Years' War, hornbeam was used to make defensive hedges. The trees were cut down for this. They sprout again and also form new shoots from the roots. Over time, this resulted in almost impenetrable hedges, with which villages and farms effectively protected themselves against raids.

What are hornbeams used for today?

Hornbeam is not very suitable for use in furniture construction. The grain of the wood is not as pronounced as with other woods.

Today, wooden floors and the hammers of pianos are made from hornbeam.

Hornbeam is good firewood

Hornbeam has a very good calorific value and was then and still is often used to heat stoves or fireplaces.

However, the wood must be cut up as freshly as possible, as the hornbeam wood that has been stored is so hard that it can hardly be beaten.

Hornbeam as a remedy

In Bach flower therapy, hornbeam is used to combat fatigue. Hildegard von Bingen also used the tree to treat white skin spots.

tips

In the garden, the hornbeam enjoys great popularity as a topiary because of its high pruning tolerance. It can be cut to almost any shape. The hornbeam is also very decorative as a standard or columnar hornbeam.

Category:

Trees