The visual appearance of wood varies according to its color, which ranges from the white of certain maples to the black of ebony, including all the browns and different shades of red. Within the same species, the color differs according to criteria such as the geographical location, the richness of the terrain, the age of the tree, the place of the wooden log in the tree. The veining (i.e. the patterns formed on the surface of the wood), whose orientation varies according to the direction of the cut, and the grain (i.e. the roughness of the wood) are two other elements that help differentiation.