English walnut

[DiscoInferno]

This year I decided to try a different fall/spring wood than my usual red maple, and so I picked up a bunch of walnut from freecycle. I know it's walnut, just based on the wood color and because I saw one of the pods left over from fall. But the bark's completely different from the other walnut trees I've seen, which I think were black walnut. I was expecting deep furrowed bark, like black locust, but most of the logs were rather smooth, with only the largest logs having some texture. See the photos; the top two logs in the bark photo are both from the same walnut tree. (Identify the bottom one for extra credit.) Is this english walnut, rather than black walnut? It's a pretty wet wood (freshly cut), so I'll be curious just how light it is after seasoning.

 

[johnsopi]

The top piece's bark looks a little like cotten wood. Looks nothing like blackl walnut.

 

[uppercanadatree]

It almost looks like butternut - in the walnut family. The bottom piece looks like honey locust

 

[DiscoInferno]

I wondered about butternut, but the pod I saw was round like a walnut, while it seemed like butternut pods were more oblong. I couldn't find any butternut or english walnut bark pictures that looked a lot like like what I have on the web. I'll hope it isn't butternut, as I think that has significantly fewer BTUs than black/english walnut.

The bottom piece is indeed honey locust (an ornamental variety).

 

[Mmaul]

See if this site can help http://www.oplin.org/tree/, I have found it very useful.

 

[colsmith]

We had a large English walnut tree right in front of the house I grew up in. Actually my father planted it, so it grew up a little bit ahead of me. There was another one further out in the yard. I must differ with one of the above opinions and say that the top hunk in the photo with the lighter bark looks just like English walnut to me. It is a light colored bark with those sorts of markings.

For the extra credit I will take a wild guess and say red elm, but could also go with locust. I have some of each in my woodpile, but quickly forgot which was which. (Homeowners and tree cutter guy all identified the woods as elm and locust but no further specifics. I figured out it was the red/slippery elm since it wasn't hard to split.)

 

[DiscoInferno]

Bumping my own old thread to report that this wood is already completely dry and very light. Butternut seems likely, unless English walnut is a lot lighter that black walnut. Guess I have a lot of light stuff to throw on the oak coals this year, what with this and some hemlock and poplar.