Alder hardwood for flooring is moderately lightweight and demonstrates moderate strength in across many applications. With alder hardwood as flooring there is no visible boundary between heartwood and sapwood. Red Alder hardwood, a relative of birch, is almost white when freshly cut but quickly changes on exposure to air, becoming light brown with a yellow or reddish tinge. More mature wood is beautifully tinted and veined. It was therefore much sought after by furniture makers. In the Highlands of Scotland, it was used a lot for making chairs and thus came to be known as ‘Scottish mahogany’. On the European continent it was used for cigar boxes, because of it reddish cedar like appearance.