Populus nigra
Black Poplar
The lightest hardwood KORENA lists, and the one most often blamed for a fault that belongs to the blade.
- This species is recorded as commercially grown in Europe. This does not establish where an individual piece was harvested; check its origin details.
- Botanical group. Softwoods are conifers; hardwoods are broadleaf trees.
- The botanical family the species belongs to.
Get notified when it landsReference species. No pieces in stock right now.
Is it right for your project?
Great for
- Painted furniture
- Drawer sides and carcass interiors
- Lightweight panels
- Sculpture and carving blanks
- Plywood core
No Black Poplar in the current drop
Similar species in stock
No Black Poplar right now. These species suit the same projects and have pieces available.
Get notified about Black Poplar
We email you when fresh Black Poplar slabs land at KORENA. Each piece is one of one, so early notice matters.
Wood appearance
What it looks like
Very pale, creamy white to light grey brown, sometimes with a faint greenish cast in the heartwood, and almost no figure. The texture is fine and even but the wood is notably soft and light at 385 kg per cubic metre, the lightest hardwood KORENA lists. It has a woolly quality under a dull blade that gives it an undeserved reputation for being difficult.
- Creamy white to light grey brown
- Occasional faint greenish cast in the heartwood
- Fine even texture with very little figure
- Straight grain, fine even texture, very little figure. Creamy white to light grey-brown, occasionally with a faint greenish cast in the heartwood.
Working with it
Working it
Easy to work with hand and machine tools, with one specific requirement: sharp cutters are necessary when planing to avoid fuzzy surfaces. This is the whole difficulty with poplar. The fibres are long and soft, and a dull blade drags rather than severs them, leaving a woolly face that sanding only makes worse. With a keen edge and a light cut it machines cleanly. It glues well and takes fastenings adequately for its density.
Finishing
Its natural role is under paint, and it takes paint very well given the fine even texture and absence of resin. Under a clear finish the pale colour with its occasional greenish cast is unusual rather than attractive to most eyes. Pigment stains blotch, so use a conditioner or a dye. Because the wood is soft, a hardwax oil or a film finish adds useful surface protection.
Drying
Dries readily and without much degrade, and it is dimensionally reasonable once dry, with volumetric shrinkage of 12.3 percent. The tangential to radial ratio of 9.3 against 4.0 percent is wide, so flatsawn boards will cup. Wet poplar is notably heavy and can carry very high green moisture content, so drying takes longer than the modest final density suggests.
How much will it move?
Wood swells and shrinks across its width as the air gets damper and drier. Estimate the seasonal movement of a Black Poplar top before you design the fixings.
Expected seasonal movement
about 10.6 mm
Fix the top with buttons or slotted brackets, not glue or tight screws.
Linear shrinkage model: width × (shrinkage ÷ 28 % fibre saturation) × seasonal moisture swing. Uses 9.3 % tangential shrinkage for Black Poplar. A planning estimate, not a guarantee.
What it costs
Safety and sourcing
- This species is recorded as commercially grown in Europe. This does not establish where an individual piece was harvested; check its origin details.
Besides the standard health risks associated with any wood dust, no further health reactions are associated with Black Poplar in the source cited here. It is among the less irritating woods in this catalogue to machine.
Populus nigra is a floodplain tree, native along river systems across Europe, North Africa and western Asia. Its natural riverside habitat has been heavily reduced by flood control and river engineering, and the wild population is now one of the more threatened tree populations in Europe, though hybrid poplars planted for timber are abundant and unrelated to that concern.
Read the full guideIn-depth notes on figure, colour change, working and stability.
What Black Poplar actually is#
Populus nigra is a floodplain tree. Its natural home is the riverbank, across Europe, North Africa and western Asia, in the shifting wet ground that flood control and river engineering have largely eliminated over the last century.
That has produced an unusual situation. The wild population of Black Poplar is one of the more threatened tree populations in Europe and the subject of active restoration work, while poplar timber itself is cheap and abundant, because the commercial trade runs largely on planted hybrid poplars. The two facts sit oddly together and are worth keeping separate when you read about the species.
The fuzzy surface problem, which is not the wood's fault#
Poplar has a reputation for machining badly. It plane fuzzy, people say, and the surface goes woolly no matter what you do.
The cited source puts it precisely: sharp cutters are necessary when planing to avoid fuzzy surfaces. That is the entire difficulty.
Poplar fibres are long and soft. A blade with any dullness at all drags them instead of severing them, and they lift into a woolly nap. Sanding the result makes it worse, because abrasive tears more fibre rather than cutting it. So the maker sands harder, gets a worse surface, and concludes the wood is the problem.
With a freshly honed iron, a tight mouth and a light cut, poplar machines perfectly cleanly. A card scraper produces an excellent final surface. This is a wood that is unusually honest about the state of your tooling.
Buyer questions
Questions buyers ask
Why does poplar go fuzzy when I plane it?
The fibres are long and soft, so a dull blade drags them rather than cutting them, leaving a woolly surface. Sanding makes it worse by tearing more fibre. The fix is a freshly honed iron, a tight mouth and a light cut, or a card scraper for the final surface. With a sharp edge poplar machines perfectly cleanly, and its reputation for being difficult is really a reputation for punishing blunt tools.
Is it strong enough to build with?
For its weight, yes, but it is the softest and lightest hardwood in this catalogue at 385 kg per cubic metre and 2,020 N Janka, softer than Scots Pine. It suits drawer sides, carcass interiors, lightweight panels and anything that will be painted. It is not a work surface and it is not a structural timber.
Is Black Poplar endangered?
The wild riverside population is genuinely threatened across Europe, having declined severely through flood control and river engineering, and it is the subject of active restoration programmes. The commercial timber trade is largely supplied by abundant hybrid poplars, which are a separate matter. It is not CITES listed and the cited source reports no IUCN assessment. Provenance is worth checking more carefully here than for most European species.
Mechanical properties
Technical data
Published reference values. Where sources disagree the range is shown, with the typical value used for the scales above.
| Density (kg/m³)Mass per cubic metre at about 12 % moisture. Heavier wood is usually harder and stronger. | 385 kg/m³ |
|---|---|
| Janka hardness (N)Force needed to press a steel ball halfway into the wood. The standard measure of dent resistance. | 2,020 N |
| MOR: modulus of rupture (MPa)Bending strength: the load at which a beam breaks. | 64 MPa |
| MOE: modulus of elasticity (GPa)Bending stiffness: how much a shelf or top sags under load. | 7.2 GPa |
| Radial shrinkageShrinkage across the growth rings, green to oven-dry. Quartersawn boards move by this. | 4.0 % |
| Tangential shrinkageShrinkage along the growth rings. Flatsawn boards and most slabs move by this. | 9.3 % |
