Burr Elm can be pure burr or partly burred (burry) and is generally more richly coloured than the surrounding plainer timber.  The wood is cut from the protruding growths on a tree which have grown as if in a deformed manner;  some trees are heavily burred almost all the way to their heart and all along their length while others have small numbers of individual burrs protruding. Our burr boards are almost always cut with the natural waney edge to exploit every square inch of this valuable natural resource.  Because the grain in a burr is so wild and goes in many different directions it resists splitting and is fairly stable.  It is more dense than ordinary elm heartwood and polishes well.