Lacewood is a reddish brown with light brown rays, which result in a lace pattern when quartersawn. Like other woods that exhibit the strongest figure in quartersawn pieces, (such as Sycamore), Lacewood has the most pronounced figure and displays the largest flecks when perfectly quartersawn; this is due to the wood’s wide medullary rays, whose layout can be seen the clearest when looking at the endgrain.

Lacewood is often confused with Leopardwood, which while having similar appearances differ in both density on the Janka Scale of Hardness (Lacewood 840 vs Leopardwood 2150) and color, with Lacewood typically being lighter in color vs Leopardwood.