Red rings in wood grain

[Lloyd the redneck]

All of the standing dead wood I have taken down on my property has red rings I have no idea what kind of tree it was but I would like to find out what it is! it seems to be a harder wood. Most around here is cottonwood. But these are not.

 

[drz1050]

Red rings could be iron deposits from a nail that was once in the tree... or maybe from some sort of bug?

Hard to tell the type of wood from those pictures, maybe cherry? Do you have any pictures of the bark? Kinda looks like elm, but elm usually sucks to split, and those look clean.

 

[Lloyd the redneck]

It's in the grain as like 3 years or so. Kind of in the middle of the life of it. I think it's a disease but I have read somewhere it could be high stress. I have no bark , all standing dead. I have some other dead trees that my neighbor refers to as ironwood. And that stuff sucks. Broke my splitter with it. So I gave up on that stuff

 

[drz1050]

No idea what the "ironwood" stuff is, all of the true (sink in water) ironwood trees I know of only grow in tropical/ warm climates...

It's probably worth your time to go after with a sharp maul though. Osage orange, locust and hickory are all fantastic for firewood. None of them are that hard to split though... if that ironwood turns out to be elm, leave it alone. Not worth the trouble.

 

[Lloyd the redneck]

I can't split it. 8lb and a home built 22 ton

 

[Lloyd the redneck]

I think it's elm. I burned some of the logs whole and it smells sweet kind of

 

[BenTN]

Boxelder? it is known for the red stain (flame). i believe its caused by fungus infection

 

[weatherguy]

Looks like box elder, so so wood in the maple family.

 

[Lloyd the redneck]

I just did a little research. It is boxelder. Thank you for the help.

 

[Dantheman300z]

I had an ash recently that had that same red, but it was near a very punky area about 10 feet up the trunk.

 

[Lloyd the redneck]

Interesting. I wonder how to treat it. Or even how to diagnose it?

 

[Hasufel]

Interesting. I wonder how to treat it.

Obviously you must treat it with fire!

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Boxelder? it is known for the red stain (flame). i believe its caused by fungus infection

+1 on box elder

 

[Karl Hungus]

No idea what the "ironwood" stuff is, all of the true (sink in water) ironwood trees I know of only grow in tropical/ warm climates...

It's probably worth your time to go after with a sharp maul though. Osage orange, locust and hickory are all fantastic for firewood. None of them are that hard to split though... if that ironwood turns out to be elm, leave it alone. Not worth the trouble.

Ironwood or Eastern Hophornbeam, is the best firewood in my neck of the woods. Better than hickory, sugar maple or oak.
Smaller tree that grows in the under story of the forest.

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact pages/hophornbeam_eastern/hophornbeam_eastern.html

 

[Lloyd the redneck]

I wish I had some hardwoods. For fire. All my hardwood trees are no where near ready to be cut down. All that is around me is huge cottonwood.