While the yew wood shows off strong, darker coloration from the sap wood, the poplar shows almost no change in color.
The board of English yew (left) shows off its dark heartwood clearly against the sapwood.
The sapwood on the board of poplar (right) is indistinguishable from the heartwood. The edge with the bark on is called the waney or live edge. Don’t be fooled by the color on the other edge. Poplar often displays strong colors in random places in the heartwood. We don’t know why.
