Wood ID

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Wilhelm911

Wilhelm911

Member
Jan 27, 2013
68
Eastern Pennsylvania
Came across a wood that has me pulling my hair out trying to hand split it! The fiskars just sinks in or bounces right out without making a crack. I noodled the top and drove a wedge in only to be more aggravated. This stuff is so stringy! Only thought I have is hickory?
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1369868885.750892.jpg
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1369868946.354581.jpg

Also is this a type of birch?
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1369868981.571216.jpg
 
Take it with a grain of salt.....I'm gonna say Hickory too;? (first photo)
 
Wilhelm911 said:
Came across a wood that has me pulling my hair out trying to hand split it! The fiskars just sinks in or bounces right out without making a crack. I noodled the top and drove a wedge in only to be more aggravated. This stuff is so stringy! Only thought I have is hickory?
View attachment 103300
View attachment 103301

I'm thinking you might have gum or maybe elm. I've had trouble splitting both.
Click to expand...
 
Top one is gum. Walk away now.
 
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That is some nasty looking stuff. I picked up a load of sweet gum not long ago. Supposed to be good burning wood once you finally get it split and dried. I read all the stories of frustration and tossed back to another scrounger. I picked it up from a tree company, and the crew loaded it in my truck as fast as they could.
 
I've got alot of gum trees, but I never had one to take down. Recently I had a 12 incher and I cut a nice round that needed to be split just once. I used a splitter and it split easy enough. The two splits were more dense than a split of maple of the same size. I put them in the stack with the maple and am going to dispell the theory that it rots fast. Why would it if it is stacked properly of the ground.
 
Gum is named appropriately for sure.
 
I just sawed up some black cherry limbs that were downed by the power company and I say that is what you have pictured there that you thought was birch....it's black cherry, or some 'round here just call it wild cherry. Normally the bark is rough, but on certain large trees the upper branches are smooth like you have pictured there. There's an outside chance it's pin cherry.

If it's sweet cherry, it would have come from a smaller tree, an orchard tree, or escaped orchard tree that is growing in the wild.
 
Unfortunately, there are many cherries that share the same common names. That's why I included the scientific name. For instance, Prunus serotina (black cherry) and Prunus avium share "wild cherry" as a common name.

Prunus avium is also referred to as "bird cherry" and "sweet cherry." There are cultivars of Prunus avium that have been used for commercial production of cherries, but I am referring to the one that is wild and well established in many parts of N.America. I've seen this tree all over Pennsylvania.

The thick horizontal lenticels and the way the bark pulls from the edges of the split look more like Prunus avium than Prunus serotina. That white layer of bark immediately under the gray outer bark is another tell for me. An easy way to confirm ID this time of year is to look for the red glands on the leaf stems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Glandes_Prunus_avium.jpg

Other references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_avium
http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=63
 
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TreePointer said:
The thick horizontal lenticels and the way the bark pulls from the edges of the split look more like Prunus avium than Prunus serotina. That white layer of bark immediately under the gray outer bark is another tell for me. An easy way to confirm ID this time of year is to look for the red glands on the leaf stems:
Click to expand...

Thanks for this. Just a few days ago I grabbed a half-dozen chunks of (I think) this same stuff from a pile of brush a neighbor had put out at the curb for the city chipper -- just a young yard tree that had been removed for whatever reason. I didn't immediately recognize it as cherry because the cut ends were lighter colored than most, and the lenticels were more pronounced than what I'm used to seeing. When split, the smell of the wood was both unexpected and unmistakable; it smelled exactly like fresh cherries. Cherry wood always smells good, but before this I never would have said it smells just like the fruit.
 
I only know it's not Hickory cause I've been splitting some with my fiskars and it splits awesome, not stringy at all
 
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