Hornbeam, also called white beech (Carpinus betulus) is a genus of the birch family, which is distributed throughout Europe to East Asia. Despite its name, the wood has no relationship with the beech family. The wood is almost white, very hard, very heavy, dense and tough, it has also been called ironwood and is by far the heaviest and hardest native wood. Due to its white color, it resembles the wood of holly, but sometimes has a slight gray tinge. The wood is traditionally used for its high strength and toughness, especially for tools, planes, handles, mallets, screws, rollers and wainwright work, as well as in mechanical engineering (mills, looms, etc.). The wellknown German expression "hanebüchen" for rough, coarse and unbelievable goes back to hornbeam wood.
