First scrounging trip-can someone ID it for me?

[Badfish740]

I've started browsing Craigslist for free wood and picked up some good sized rounds yesterday. It was just cut in June so it's still pretty wet-my wood grenade wouldn't split it-should I try wedges instead? Or should I just let it sit and dry a little more before I try again? I stripped as much of the bark off as I could. Any guesses as to what it is?

 

[sapratt]

Looks kinda like the bark on our Silver Maple.

 

[Todd]

Looks like Silver Maple to me.

 

[jpl1nh]

Me too. Those big rounds can be pretty gnarly.

 

[Rockey]

I thought it was cherry when I first looked at it. The bark looks right anyway, but its hard to see the color in the wood grain. A good sniff should tell. Can you turn the picture into a scratch and sniff?

 

[PA. Woodsman]

Here's another vote for Silver Maple; split it and it shouldn't take real long to dry out.

 

[glacialhills]

The bark looks flaky.Silver maple bark comes off in full sheets usually just like cherry. Kinda like the whole cambium layer releases all at once not in small bits and pieces. Might even be maybe some kind of pine. Saying you couldn't split it kinda rules out the pine and prolly even silver maple because they are usually pretty easy to split even huge rounds as long as the are not crotchety or full of knots.So my guess with the info of hard to split and flaky, clinging bark is It could be sycamore.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

My first thought was a pine too. HA 2 for maple, 2 for pine! How's that for accuracy! :lol: If you split and we can see the grain it should be easy to tell. If you had a clean cut and we could see the wood color we could guess better also.

It really doesn't matter what it is. Split it with wedges across the grain along the edges and dry it out. Burn it and congrats on the score!

Matt

 

[boostnut]

Maple, quarter it with a saw.

 

[JustWood]

Silver Maple it is.

 

[smokinj]

Silver Maple it is.

Yes sir! Silver maple it IS!Got 10 cords or better of it myself

 

[glacialhills]

Wow, glad other folks are so positive at the ID of a round with some bark. I sure couldn't be 100 % positive with such little identifiers to go by. I have placed two pics of silver maple(Acer saccharinum) and two of sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), and I think the sycamore bark more closely matches the round in question... going by the bark, and the claims that the bark was hard to peel off and didn't come off in a full sheet, and the person was unable to split them I dont think Acer saccharinum matches the discription and photo..... But what do I know.

 

[smokinj]

Wow, glad other folks are so positive at the ID of a round with some bark. I sure couldn't be 100 % positive with such little identifiers to go by. I have placed two pics of silver maple(Acer saccharinum) and two of sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), and I think the sycamore bark more closely matches the round in question... going by the bark, and the claims that the bark was hard to peel off and didn't come off in a full sheet, and the person was unable to split them I dont think Acer saccharinum matches the discription and photo..... But what do I know.

After doing 10 cords of it iam darn sure!and not being truely round is a dead give away!

 

[glacialhills]

With all due respect, What does being round have anything to do with the genus of the tree? Are you saying sycamore only grows with a perfectly round trunk? And look at the bark. it grows in longish strips on the acer and more boxy and flaky on the sycamore. look at the margins of the big round he has. the bark has flaked off and shows that inner color that a sycamore or pine has but still has not completely come off. Again, As I have said on many other threads, You can not 100% id genus and definitely not species from just a round with some bark. It very well might be silver maple but just as easily be something else. And with the few identifiers he presented (biggest clue was the bark not coming off from the wood in big sheets like acer does when it drys and being so hard to split) I wouldn't go with acer as the genus of those rounds. Oh and I just got done doing up 3 25"+ silver maples that my folks took out for a garage and those sure looked different than these rounds. If it was truly cut in june, the bark would be releasing from the wood a lot more by now. Mine was cut green and in a couple of months the bark was mostly separated from the rounds and came off with an easy pull in huge sheets.

 

[smokinj]

With all due respect, What does being round have anything to do with the genus of the tree? Are you saying sycamore only grows with a perfectly round trunk? And look at the bark. it grows in longish strips on the acer and more boxy and flaky on the sycamore. look at the margins of the big round he has. the bark has flaked off and shows that inner color that a sycamore or pine has but still has not completely come off. Again, As I have said on many other threads, You can not 100% id genus and definitely not species from just a round with some bark. It very well might be silver maple but just as easily be something else. And with the few identifiers he presented (biggest clue was the bark not coming off from the wood in big sheets like acer does when it drys and being so hard to split) I wouldn't go with acer as the genus of those rounds. Oh and I just got done doing up 3 25"+ silver maples that my folks took out for a garage and those sure looked different than these rounds. If it was truly cut in june, the bark would be releasing from the wood a lot more by now. Mine was cut green and in a couple of months the bark was mostly separated from the rounds and came off with an easy pull in huge sheets.

look at the second pic it looks like there is two trees inside of one(2 harts) soft maple do this. where iam from this is the wood you can get for free all day long.I use it in the shoulder season.

 

[glacialhills]

Yes silver maples do, and probably more often than other trees. But any genus can grow like this and it is not a genus specific identifier like bark, leaves,nodes and other things are. This huge Sycamore could have two heart rounds like his pic shows up in the canopy.Because we did not get solid identifiers like leaves and nodes The only thing any of us can do is guess at this point. If Badfish can show us some leaves, or go back and see where it was growing we could see what trees are nearby. If it is in a big bunch of silver maples and those others show the same bark pattern....bingo mystery solved. If it was a street tree and there are a bunch more huge sycamores all along the same street and not a silver maple in sight then sycamore would be a good guess.

 

[smokinj]

Yes silver maples do, and probably more often than other trees. But any genus can grow like this and it is not a genus specific identifier like bark, leaves,nodes and other things are. This huge Sycamore could have two heart rounds like his pic shows up in the canopy.Because we did not get solid identifiers like leaves and nodes The only thing any of us can do is guess at this point. If Badfish can show us some leaves, or go back and see where it was growing we could see what trees are nearby. If it is in a big bunch of silver maples and those others show the same bark pattern....bingo mystery solved. If it was a street tree and there are a bunch more huge sycamores all along the same street and not a silver maple in sight then sycamore would be a good guess.

ok, i give but i have 20 bucks that says that is a silver maple

 

[Jags]

There's a lot of discussion going on just to identify a Silver Maple.

Edit: actually at first blush, I thought it was in the pine family.

 

[PA. Woodsman]

I can see and appreciate the facts that are being presented (there was a thread awhile ago that most ID'ed as some sort of Ash that I still swear was/is Honeylocust) but I really believe that the pictured wood is Silver Maple. I don't know where the original poster lives, but around here in PA. all of our Sycamore trees are more greenish or greenish-brown, but that can vary from state to state and tree to tree. I've already pulled up to wood and from a distance thought "that's Cherry" and upon further review found it to be Silver Maple. Maybe this guy can take it somewhere and ask exactly what it is so that we can be sure, because I can understand Glacialhill's viewpoint!


Sycamore will also be not as "smooth" inside when split as Silver Maple, if that helps.

 

[Rockey]

Hehehe Whewee, I sure had some of you going with all that stupid cherry talk back there. I knew it was silver maple all along.

 

[ansehnlich1]

Hehehe Whewee, I sure had some of you going with all that stupid cherry talk back there. I knew it was silver maple all along.

Hey Rockey, you were'nt that far off, sheesh, anybody can tell by that pic that whatever kind of tree it was, it grew NEXT to a cherry tree

I though cherry too as soon as I looked at it, case ya wanted to know.

 

[ccwhite]

I still think it looks like a big honkin' wild cherry. That's most of what I cut around here. The wood looks to have the telltale red color and the texture of the bark looks right. But really it's just a big chunk of firewood. Whatever it is ..... it'll burn.

Now play nice and no fight.

 

[PA. Woodsman]

I still think it looks like a big honkin' wild cherry. That's most of what I cut around here. The wood looks to have the telltale red color and the texture of the bark looks right.

I looked at it again; I don't see the telltale red "ring" on the cut side of the wood that Cherry has in the second picture, but I see red tint on the cut side of the first picture. Perhaps he has some Cherry AND Silver Maple; Cherry would be red inside and Silver Maple mostly bland white. I wish that this guy would split it open so that we can get an answer here! LOL...

 

[billb3]

My first glance thought was pine, too, but no way would someone have to rock a saw like was done in that second pic.
Not even a dull one.

Cherry (around here) bark has a bit of an flared edge to it. I don't see it.

Looking at the cut end and the way the saw went through it, looks more like maple to me, too, but most of the maple I cut around year is still rather young with still smooth bark.
Looks like maple in my neighbor's yard (norway) that I keep offering to cut down for him .

 

[Dill]

Does this stuff split wicked hard?
The wood doesn't look dark enough for cherry.
I have a some in my yard from a scrounging trip also that is very similar. An old timer told me it was "Pin Oak". For what its worth.