ID Mystery wood?

[Donk4kyv]

I was given two truckloads of this stuff. Cut and delivered. All I have to do is split and stack. Seems like pretty crappy wood, about like box elder, but doesn't have that bark. White when split, and has a soft, brown, pithy core about the size of your little finger. Not much aroma; kind of reminds me of the smell old fashioned wallpaper paste. Thin bark that easily peels off. You can see the pithy core in the stacked rounds below. Makes it easy to split, just press the spike into the soft core, and one good whack often splits it into 3 or 4 clean pieces.

The guy found it on some new property he acquired and had no use for it. Said it had been lying there for some time; he had to clear weeds away from it. It has been cut long enough for end checking to appear, but it seems to hold moisture, and feels wet to the touch when freshly split. Moisture meter reads between 30% and 50%. If the tree had fallen in my back field I probably would have just let it stay there and rot, but since it was delivered right to my doorstep free of charge, I can't look a gift horse in the mouth. Anything will burn!

I think when dry, like box elder and its ilk, it should make excellent starter wood to get the stove to temperature and create a bed of coals for some real firewood, but probably would require hourly re-loading if used as main heating fuel.

Location, middle Tennessee.

 

[BEConklin]

Looks like ailanthus (tree of heaven) to me.

 

[paul bunion]

Looks like ailanthus (tree of heaven) to me.

That it is

 

[Paulywalnut]

Trying to be positive but when dry it will burn like rolled up paper