Maple trees fall into two broad categories. Soft Maple and Hard Maple. These terms are quite misleading because soft Maple is not really soft. It is soft only in comparison to Hard or Rock Maple. Soft Maple is harder than Cherry and most other woods. The other common name for Soft Maple is Red Maple.

When Hard Maple has highly figured boards it is usually Birds Eye Maple which is really lots of very small knots.

When Soft Maple has highly figured wood it is usually Tiger Maple. Named because of its likeness to a Tiger’s stripes. It is sometimes called fiddle back Maple because for centuries it has been used to make violins. It is also sometimes called curly Maple. However, this is not correct as curly Maple is a different type of figuring. Tiger figuring is stripes that go across the grain. Curley figuring is “S” shaped lines that run parallel to the grain. Sometimes boards will have both Curly and Tiger figuring.

Some people say that Tiger is a result of the grain not being parallel to the log so that it is end gain showing on the face of the board. This seems to make sense, but it may or may not be true. Mostly no one knows what makes wood figured. It is one of life's mysteries.

Tiger Maple is sold by small specialty lumber dealers. They sometimes purchase it from the mainstream lumber industry who consider it a defect and cull it out. In some cases loggers can tell by looking at the outside of a log that it will have Tiger figure and will sell these logs to the specialty dealers directly.

The supply of Tiger Maple is small and availability can be sporadic. The quality of figured wood is a subjective matter that requires a relationship of trust between the lumber dealer and the furniture maker. These factors are all reasons that the mainstream furniture industry does not use Tiger Maple. Also, using highly figured wood to make furniture requires sorting and repositioning the boards and making judgments and decisions during the building process. The larger factories prefer to treat every board the same so that production is fast and lower skilled workers can be utilized.