Help needed with wood ID.

[Nick Mystic]

I cut down a tree yesterday that was alive, but looking pretty scraggly. When I started splitting and stacking it today I found it to be very gnarly. Here are few photos of it and the leaves from the tree:









I can't swear to it, but I'm pretty sure these are some leaves from the tree. When I tried splitting the 14" rounds with my new Fiskars X27 splitting axe it just bounced off the wood at first. I put a sharper edge on the axe and tried splitting some 22" long oak splits and they popped in half with one easy swing. When I went back to this wood I ended up having success by nibbling away at the edges taking off 2 to 3 inches at a time until I could get it down to about an 8" square and then I could split the remaining chunk of wood okay in most instances.

 

[BEConklin]

The split wood and the leaves look like hickory to me but judging by the bark and the lighter colored heartwood,,, if it is - it's a hickory I'm not that familiar with.

 

[splitoak]

Dark heartwood suggests........good firewood!

 

[Pellet_Pete]

My first though was persimmon, but the bark isn't blocky enough. Next guess is sourwood (Oxydendron arboreum), which should grow at your latitude. ID page here Sourwood is usually an understory tree, so it would probably look like "scraggly". The leaves don't look like either of these though - they look like black gum leaves (Nyssa sylvatica), which is my third guess.

 

[Applesister]

I agree with Mr Conklin. The leaves could be leaflets. The behavior of the wood grain says very dense fine grain. It leaves a very crisp edge.
The bark is just nothing familiar to me in the northern range trees here.
Im not familiar with Black or Sweet Gum so I cannot comment on those possibilities.

 

[bigbarf48]

Gum for sure

That split face gives it away 100% to me because sadly I've dealt with it a lot

It's tough splitting but not bad firewood

 

[wahoowad]

Gum, and will dry as light as balsa wood if I remember right

 

[blazincajun]

Saw the leaves and grain and immediately thought of sour wood. It is hard to split as well. Wood grain looks kind of soft. If the bark is soft and the surface rubs off easily it's probably sour wood. You may not be able to tell but it's branches usually droop a bit.

 

[blazincajun]

Also, sour wood has small hairs on the leaf stems.

 

[Nick Mystic]

I think those of you who have said sour wood might be onto something. We have a fair amount of sour wood on our property, but I have never cut down one as large as this tree, which was about 14" in diameter. All the sour wood trees I've harvested in the past have been much smaller trees, perhaps under six inches in diameter. They tend to grow at an angle so they are often collateral damage when I drop a tree, which is why I've harvested a number of the smaller ones. Since they have all been small I've never had to split any of the wood until now. As I think of the characteristics of the wood I can see that it looks very similar to the small sour wood trees I've worked up in the past. That wood has all burned nicely, so I suspect this larger stuff will burn well, too. Thanks for the information everyone. Since I had so much trouble splitting it by hand I'm planning on trying my 7 ton electric splitter on it tomorrow to see how it can handle it.

 

[Woody Stover]

Gum for sure

That split face gives it away 100% to me because sadly I've dealt with it a lot It's tough splitting but not bad firewood.

Black Tupelo, aka Blackgum? That's what the bark and leaf shape look like, but I haven't split any yet....and probably won't try it now. The leaves are dark green, thick and shiny, and turn a beautiful red in the fall.

 

[blazincajun]

If you look closely at the leaf scars on the small twigs with a magnifying glass, blackgum and sweetgum have three vascular bundles and sourwood has only one vascular bundle.

 

[dougand3]

Nick, pay close attn to splitter behavior and don't wreck your splitter on this gnarly wood. I split 1/2 cord Sweet Gum with an 8 lb maul...liked to have killed me. Most of the time, the gum just laughed at the swings. When I see free Gum on CL now - I pull out a Crucifix, wooden stake and silver bullet....it's just evil.

 

[Nick Mystic]

I finished spitting and stacking the last of the sour wood this morning. I used my 7 ton electric splitter and it handled the job pretty well. It couldn't split the rounds down the middle, but by nibbling off three inch slabs around the edges i was able to end up with some real nice six inch squares. My splitter has a safety overload shut off for the hydraulics, so if something is too much for it the splitter releases and you just have to shut it off and turn it back on to reset things. Once I got a system worked out things went smooth. I cut a couple rounds too long for the splitter (21" maximum length), so those I had to do by hand with m Fiskars X27. The same technique worked with axe, as well. I couldn't split down the middle, but by nibbling on the perimeter I was able to work the rounds up to burn size pieces. Next job it so start working up some trees that have been down for a couple of years, but are hung up. I know how dangerous it can be working on these "widow makers", but they look like they shouldn't be too bad. Famous last words, right?