The invention relates to a wood identification method. The method comprises the following steps of: (1) generating characteristic quantities, namely partitioning a wood image, extracting local characteristics of each partitioned image, combining the local characteristics of a plurality of partitioned images to form the characteristics of the wood image, clustering and merging the characteristics of the wood image by clustering, extracting clustered information, and on the basis, screening the clustered information to form the characteristic quantities of the wood image; (2) repeating the step(1) for each image in an N original wood images-containing training sample set so as to generate an N characteristic quantities-containing characteristic set; (3) repeating the step (1) for the wood images to be identified so as to generate the characteristic quantities of the wood images to be identified; and (4) calculating the characteristic quantities of the wood images to be identified and the characteristic set by an earth mover's distance (EMD) algorithm to generate N EMDs, and classifying the N EMDs to obtain an identification result. The method has higher identification rate.