Paulownia isn’t the easiest wood in the world to spell. Variations we’ve encountered have included pawlownia and pawlonia. The tree’s official name is even more of a mouthful: paulownia tomentosa and it was named after Anna Paulovna (1795-1865), a Russian princess.

Anna was the daughter of Tsar Paul I and was courted by many heads of state, including (if history is to be believed) Napoleon Bonaparte. Unlike many royal households of that time, the Russian royal family allowed their children to choose their own spouses and Anna decided on the Prince of Orange, who later become King William II of the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, Anna was known as Anna Paulowna and by all accounts wasn’t hugely popular with her Dutch subjects. Still, they liked her enough to name a tree after her! At first the plant was called paulownia imperialis, but over time that got changed to tomentosa…which means hairy.

One of paulownia’s greatest attributes is that it’s both lightweight and strong. In fact, paulownia is the lightest wood in the world (after balsa).

The timber’s low density provides excellent buoyancy, making it highly suitable for boat building, surfboards and kayaks.

The most common test for measuring wood hardness is known as the Janka hardness test. The actual number listed in the wood profile is the amount of force required to embed a .444″ (11.28 mm) diameter steel ball into the wood to a depth of half the ball’s diameter. The results are stated in various ways in different countries – in Australia and New Zealand, Janka hardness ratings are either in newtons (N) or kilonewtons (kN). Paulownia has a Janka hardness rating of 1.3-1.4 kN.

And just in case you’re curious, the heaviest wood in the world is black ironwood. It’s found in southern Florida, the Caribbean, and Central America, but is rarely available for sale, since the tree itself is very small.