What is this shredded mess?

[Firefighter938]

Bark looks like soft maple to me.

 

[tymbee]

Sweetgum does that, too. A shredded mangled mess. Gum usually isn't too bad splitting after the rounds have set a few months.

Sweetgum was my thought as well. Almost easier to chainsaw through than split. I've "split" a lot of Sweetgum in Jersey.

http://www.carolinanature.com/trees/list.html

 

[Mag Craft]

The bark doesn't look anything like American elm, IMO. It's a lot smoother and shows plating and patterning of a shag. (Pictured below is a cropping and magnification of original.)

I agree the bark is to smooth for elm

 

[Jon_E]

With that last picture, I'm even more certain that it's silver maple.

 

[AnalogKid]

Picture in post #20; the bark looks like American Elm, and where you can see the ends and insides of splits, they too look like American Elm.

I agree that the bark in the magnified pic looks closer to maple, but not that stuff in post #20. Also, I've never had any maple that wasn't just about effortless to split.

 

[Ram 1500 with an axe...]

Whenever it gets figured out, it will still be good to go 2 years from now, give or take, any wood split up is great wood....
Hopefully you get your answer....

 

[Alan W]

Looks to me like elm. Shag Bark doesn't split like that. Elm does. I split up a big one- heavy, twisted, etc.. But yeah, I'm on the elm side.

 

[TreePointer]

Looks to me like elm. Shag Bark doesn't split like that. Elm does. I split up a big one- heavy, twisted, etc.. But yeah, I'm on the elm side.

You have a good point that that a lot of elm, in general, does split like that. From my own experience, I've left some shag for a year before splitting, and they turned out to be some nasty stringy buggers--just like pictured above. Those pictures show seasoned butt ends and even some yellow fungus, indicating that they've been around a while before splitting.

My problem with the ID of elm for that wood is that the bark doesn't look like any American/white or slippery/red I see around here.

 

[AnalogKid]

We can try this...

Here's an American Elm I dropped a month or so ago. gzecc, did your rounds look anything like this?

 

[gzecc]

We can try this...

Here's an American Elm I dropped a month or so ago. gzecc, did your rounds look anything like this?

View attachment 148970View attachment 148971

All the other rounds were barkless. Thats why I thought they were elm.

 

[blades]

Looks like a shreeded Elm mess but the bark says otherwise , if a barkless piece has a smooth surface with a lot of bug activity - then Elm
Hard to tell from pics and that looks like its been around for quite a while, at any rate it is still some btus in the stove.