Tree/firewood identification

[kevinyj95]

Hello all Im new here and require some help. I have a lot of trees on my property and im on the firewood hunt. I cant identify this species. Most years I just take oak apple and ash. This year however I am falling short of what I expect to use. These trees are large and seem very green inside. They seem to grow faster than other around them. So im thinking they most likely will be unusable resins etc... But perhaps I can use them as building materials if I cant use them as firewood. Thanks everyone
almost forgot I live in northern maine

 

[PA. Woodsman]

Welcome to the forum! I see White Birch and the one with the green moss on looks like Ash to me. Then I almost snapped my neck looking at them sideways so I quit! Both are very good fuelwood trees!

 

[kevinyj95]

That's what it looks like right? two different trees but there actually the same trees. its not white birch its actually a grey color and its not ash. It has me rather confused. These trees tower over all the rest on my property. The wood is green wet feeling and soft in the center of the larger ones. Ash is always nice and dry and birch feels harder. Sorry about not cropping the pics not use to using a computer quite yet.

 

[Seanm]

That's what it looks like right? two different trees but there actually the same trees. its not white birch its actually a grey color and its not ash. It has me rather confused. These trees tower over all the rest on my property. The wood is green wet feeling and soft in the center of the larger ones. Ash is always nice and dry and birch feels harder. Sorry about not cropping the pics not use to using a computer quite yet.

At first I thought white birch until I saw the tree lower down. That looks like an aspen poplar to me. Around here they can have quite a bit of white on them confusing people into thinking they are birch but when you look closer there is no peeling bark.

 

[gyrfalcon]

That's what it looks like right? two different trees but there actually the same trees. its not white birch its actually a grey color and its not ash. It has me rather confused. These trees tower over all the rest on my property. The wood is green wet feeling and soft in the center of the larger ones. Ash is always nice and dry and birch feels harder. Sorry about not cropping the pics not use to using a computer quite yet.

Not an expert at this, but poplar ("popple") is a good bet. It's very lightweight, low-BTU wood, good for kindling when it's nice a dry, and it does dry fast, or maybe "shoulder season" burning at most. I'd take a bunch for free and give it space in my stacks, but I sure wouldn't put any effort into getting it.

 

[kevinyj95]

Alright so building materials and kindling. Thanks all. Aspen poplar. What a nice name for such a pointless tree. ohh well good fence posts and such. Perhaps I will make a garage with it.

 

[red oak]

I was thinking poplar also. How do those trees grow sideways in Maine?

 

[gyrfalcon]

I was thinking poplar also. How do those trees grow sideways in Maine?

Maine is a little, you know, strange. We New Englanders try not to talk about it much. Their White-Throated Sparrows sing the WTS song upside down and in minor key, too. (Song goes, "Old.... Sam Peabody-Peabody-Peabody")

 

[red oak]

Maine is a little, you know, strange. We New Englanders try not to talk about it much. Their White-Throated Sparrows sing the WTS song upside down and in minor key, too. (Song goes, "Old.... Sam Peabody-Peabody-Peabody")

Even though I'm from Virginia, I love New England! If I could I would move there. Much nicer in the summer, and you guys know how to have a real winter up there!

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Popple but don't think about using much for building material. That would be the tulip popple (yellow popple) which is no where near the same wood.

You can burn this with no problem and it will dry quite fast. Many call it gopher wood and it can be but it is still good to burn in spring/fall or even on those warmer winter days.

Still your apple, ash and oak will take about the same amount of time to cut up so you get better returns on that. But, popple and ash can be burned after a year but I'd surely hate to burn oak after only a year of drying time.

 

[gyrfalcon]

Popple but don't think about using much for building material. That would be the tulip popple (yellow popple) which is no where near the same wood.

You can burn this with no problem and it will dry quite fast. Many call it gopher wood and it can be but it is still good to burn in spring/fall or even on those warmer winter days.

Still your apple, ash and oak will take about the same amount of time to cut up so you get better returns on that. But, popple and ash can be burned after a year but I'd surely hate to burn oak after only a year of drying time.

Amen. Tulip poplar is a whole different deal. White popple would probably melt away in a year if you tried to make fence posts out of it.

 

[gyrfalcon]

Even though I'm from Virginia, I love New England! If I could I would move there. Much nicer in the summer, and you guys know how to have a real winter up there!

Oh, yeah, you bet. The low humidity well inland where I am in Western Vermont in both summer and winter makes a huge difference, too. Come on up!!

 

[kevinyj95]

The wood I cut now is not for now. I try to stay ahead a year or two. Although I have noticed the -32d winter air sucks the moisture out of the wood fast. I don't time it really. I like to cut split stack and wait for the right dry feel to the wood. My favorite is apple. I like oak for the nights. During the day I run a mix. This is my second year on this property. I was not prepared last winter this year im ahead again. Trying to stay ahead. This house was built in the early 1800s So the property is pretty cleared out. Before this I lived further north in maine/canada and south in pike NH its not even on a map. I don't mind it here but the logging road I live on is a little noisy and theres always cars. I moved south for awhile but to crowded to many people and cars so I keep moving further north. Next stop will most likely be Alaska. Lol. Northern maine is a nice place with nice people. Just stay out of places like bangor and Portland. Seems like the more people there are the meaner they get. I would love to live someplace with no roads. But I need gas for my stihl 362 and my jeeps. I split with a maul and wedge so im good there. My wife would die without her cell phone anyways lol. We call it her life support. My only source of heat is wood. Two woodstoves. Used to have an antique outdoor wood boiler as well but it has a large crack allowing to much airflow. Kept blowing out copper pipes. Im going to try to weld it up and get that going as well. Its a large old house almost all original. Cold winters drafty windows lotts of snow. Got by last winter burning wet and fresh green wood in the outdoor wood boiler and whatever I could find dry for inside. It was a cold winter.

 

[bag of hammers]

Popple but don't think about using much for building material. That would be the tulip popple (yellow popple) which is no where near the same wood.

You can burn this with no problem and it will dry quite fast. Many call it gopher wood and it can be but it is still good to burn in spring/fall or even on those warmer winter days.

Still your apple, ash and oak will take about the same amount of time to cut up so you get better returns on that. But, popple and ash can be burned after a year but I'd surely hate to burn oak after only a year of drying time.

Grows like a weed. I got a bunch of poplar logs from the line clearing a year or so ago. Rather than let it go to rot I cut and split. Everything Backwoods Savage said, plus it was effortless to split. I stacked it on pallets and burned a lot of it in the next shoulder season for some decent small hot fires (not to mention free)

 

[gyrfalcon]

Seems like the more people there are the meaner they get

Amen to that. As a fairly recent refugee from metro suburbs to the country, I couldn't agree more.

 

[TreePointer]

The tree that has the vertical furrows in the bark in the bottom section of the trunk is bigtooth Aspen. The trees with the smaller yellow leaves and white bark that goes all the way to the ground is quaking Aspen.

It should be fairly easy to ID these trees by leaves on the ground if they aren't any on the trees right now. Google images of the leaves and bark of these trees to see the differences.

 

[nrford]

You have both Big-tooth and Quaking aspen there.

 

[Beer Belly]

Sometimes I get Poplar and Ash confused....the one thing that I noticed, is that although similar in bark, Poplar seems to grow straight and tall, and Ash not so straight.....does that make sense ?

 

[billb3]

Looks like birch ( the white ones)
big tooth aspen ( the grey ones)
poplar ( the brown furrowed bark ones)

birch burns OK but it will rot if it's not split and/or kept nice and dry
big tooth aspen the bark smells not so great - I have some for next year as the trees here are the same ages and at end of lives /dying. I'm cutting them down as they are dropping branches where I'd rather not be picking them up all Winter, especially with the snow blower.
poplar -I have only tried dead ones which are already in soft sad shape and not worth the effort - I leave them for the woodpeckers to live in and hunt bugs ( unless it will fall on someone/thing - then it is cut down and left to finish rotting

 

[bag of hammers]

Aspen, poplar, cottonwood all species in the "genus populus" ("the poplars"). Beyond that (taxonomy), my head explodes. Around here we've always just referred to the quaking (trembling) aspens as "poplars". We got a bazillion of them.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Sometimes I get Poplar and Ash confused....the one thing that I noticed, is that although similar in bark, Poplar seems to grow straight and tall, and Ash not so straight.....does that make sense ?

Not at all. I see no way anyone could confuse popple with ash as they are not similar in bark.. In addition, it depends on where the trees grow but most all of our ash are straight but we have none that grow in the open as we are basically all wooded here.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Looks like birch ( the white ones)
big tooth aspen ( the grey ones)
poplar ( the brown furrowed bark ones)

birch burns OK but it will rot if it's not split and/or kept nice and dry
big tooth aspen the bark smells not so great - I have some for next year as the trees here are the same ages and at end of lives /dying. I'm cutting them down as they are dropping branches where I'd rather not be picking them up all Winter, especially with the snow blower.
poplar -I have only tried dead ones which are already in soft sad shape and not worth the effort - I leave them for the woodpeckers to live in and hunt bugs ( unless it will fall on someone/thing - then it is cut down and left to finish rotting

No birch there.

 

[TreePointer]

I've seen some yellow poplar (tuliptree) bark that, at first glance, made me think of ash bark. Looking more closely, it certainly is not ash.

The funny thing is that yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) is not a true poplar.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Indeed there are similarities between the yellow poplar and ash bark.

 

[Beer Belly]

I gotta get a picture of a tree on my property that I was told was Poplar, and looked a heck of a lot like the Ash I had dropped