In this contribution, a micromechanical modeling approach in the framework of poromechanics is adopted to study structure-stiffness relations of two quite different species, namely spruce and yew, in detail. In particular, microstructural specialties of yew and spruce are assessed. A dominant influence of the cellulose content and its orientation on the stiffness of the cell wall is revealed, while on the macroscopic scale, density is found to be the governing microstructural characteristic for elastic properties.