Birdseye maple is found in the Great Lake states, Appalachians, Northwest US, and Canada. The color is cream to light reddish brown heart wood with thin white sapwood tinged slightly with reddish-brown. It is usually straight-grained; sometimes found highly figured with curly, fiddleback, blistered, or quilted. The birdseye figure ranges from mild to strong with occasional outbursts of curl or blister figure.

Very hard and durable, it is milled from the Hard Sugar Maple tree, highly valued for its use in the crafting of musical instruments, contemporary furniture, and early American furniture pieces.

It has excellent resistance to abrasion and indentation and its uses include furniture, frames, mantels, turnery, cabinet-making, interiors, fixtures, flooring, wooden ware, cutting surfaces, bakery paddles and other industrial uses, school furniture, decorative inlays and overlays.