English brown oak isn’t actually a separate species; rather it’s the result of a fungus that has infested the heartwood of a European oak and turned it a rich, dark brown. When that process doesn’t deteriorate the wood itself, it’s sliced to produce this highly desirable, deep brown veneer. Available in flat or quarter cuts as well as rift cut, which produces an exquisite flake pattern when sliced across the wood’s broad medullary rays.
England
Planetree is a particularly decorative veneer—reddish-gray with a silvery sheen, straight grain, and a lovely small flake in quarter cut veneer, the result of cutting through its extremely regular medullary rays. Found in wetland habitats across Europe, it's said to be the specie of the famed Solitary Tree that legend says marked the spot of the battle between Alexander the Great and Darius in northern Persia.