Wood ID

[bigealta]

i'm just getting more and more confused. It is possible there are 2 different kinds of wood here but i'm just not sure? All of them have been burning just like oak burns. I don't really get hard maple here so that i don't have experience with, it's just the soft maple which this is nothing like.

 

[Dieselhead]

Man that is the best deep dive to identify a species I’ve ever seen. Well done! I just split and stacked well over a cord of what I know is white oak along with several cords of black and red oak. I’m going to hopefully be down at the pile tomorrow I will grab some white oak pieces out of the pile and post up what we see in CT for white.

 

[Dieselhead]

I think this split face, posted by the OP, looks like Maple. It has an almost "iridescent depth" to it when viewing it at different angles, if you know what I mean.
View attachment 343037

That split face would of also threw me off for white oak but some of the log length i processed in the last week had a fracture from felling and had since got water intrusion into it, and looks very similar to this specific pic.

 

[bigealta]

And when i sanded the end grain i did think i got a bit of a pee smell.

 

[Woody Stover]

It is possible there are 2 different kinds of wood here but i'm just not sure? All of them have been burning just like oak burns. I don't really get hard maple here so that i don't have experience with, it's just the soft maple which this is nothing like.

This Red Maple I have is actually pretty heavy. Not as heavy as hard Maple, but definitely a step above Silver Maple, even though the BTU ratings would indicate that they should be similar. Another thing I see with these Maples along the drive here, is that there appear to be hybrids/crosses. The bark and flowers can look different between trees, even though the leaves indicate that they are all "Red Maple."
You could be running across some of these hybrids, since you got the wood from the "town temporary storage area," possibly trees from peoples' yards or that were planted along roadways.
I have also read that the Red Oak types can hybridize, and the leaf forms of the Red Oak group here (Red and Black) seem to blur together sometimes.
Now, regarding your latest bark pics in post #25, compare your 822 and 823 to my Red Maple bark pics in post #17. Note the "cupped" appearance of the bark ridges, and the horizontal cracks across the ridges. They look very similar to me. And 824 split face sure looks Maple-y..

 

[bigealta]

Yes i see what you are saying. And these trees would have come from street trees or close to street trees, or possibly one of our small parks. So from a suburban area either way. Could definitely be planted by homeowners or the hybrids you mention.

I do see different types of red maples in people's yards here.

I don't know how to identify "hard" maples.

 

[bigealta]

I would be good news if this is a Maple. I mostly know our oaks here but would be keeping an eye out for these "new to me" trees as they are easily burning as well as my red oaks.

 

[Woody Stover]

I would be good news if this is a Maple. I mostly know our oaks here but would be keeping an eye out for these "new to me" trees as they are easily burning as well as my red oaks....I don't know how to identify "hard" maples.

Maple is usually easy to come by. Many folks who don't know much about firewood demand strictly Oak, and Maple gets discarded more often.
The "hard" Maple I see here is Sugar Maple, but Black Maple is closely related. ID is fairly easy; The leaf has the classic "Canadian Maple Leaf" look, and the bark is sometime flaky/shaggy.
A great book for ID is the Audubon Guide. It gives many indicators to narrow down your IDs, species range maps and brief histories of uses, etc.
It's getting harder to find intact leaf samples;
Here's a Sugar leaf and bark (upper branches have smooth bark,) plus Red Maple and Black Oak leaves.

 

[Dajolu]

Oh man the lengths some of ya'll go through for a wood ID! Great reading though.

 

[Woody Stover]

Oh man the lengths some of ya'll go through for a wood ID!

All you really need to know is, dry it, then burn it. But if ya wanna nerd out a bit, that's OK too. 😏

 

[Dieselhead]

Ok a no doubter-white oak, pic heavy photo dump. End grains, stains and bark galore. 😬

 

[Dieselhead]

Yea all those little dots


View attachment 343019

I was calling the medullary rays the wrong thing I think, they are perpendicular to the growth rings, correct?

 

[Woody Stover]

Ok a no doubter-white oak, pic heavy photo dump. End grains, stains and bark galore. 😬

And pic 8075 has the cupped bark ridges that I was pointing out on my Red Maple. 😆

medullary rays....perpendicular to the growth rings

Yep. Good, highly-visible example in pic 8069.

 

[Dieselhead]

And pic 8075 has the cupped bark ridges that I was pointing out on my Red Maple. 😆

Yep. Good, highly-visible example in pic 8069.

8075 is a piece of white oak sitting on red oak. Not a great pic.

 

[Woody Stover]

8075 is a piece of white oak sitting on red oak.

Ah, OK. Yeah, Red Oak can have those light gray, flat bark ridges as you go up the tree higher.

 

[bigealta]

Thanks for all the pics. Those end grain shots look just like the Guide shows for the white oak end grain. It's very clear.

I'm ruling out White oak for my splits based on the guide and your pics confirming real life looks just like the guide.

This is my grain.

 

[bigealta]

I think Red oak can also be eliminated as the light colored lines in each grain (or is it between each grain?) are running horizontal
not vertical like in both White and Red Oak.
View attachment 343187

All you really need to know is, dry it, then burn it. But if ya wanna nerd out a bit, that's OK too. 😏

I'm really interested because this could be a new very local source of wood i may have been overlooking. It's burning now in the f400 and roasting the room. Love it!

 

[bigealta]

I just looked at close ups of almost every oak end grain in the book, No matches with the horizontal light lines in red the circled pic.
Same with the maple.
The oak is very similar if it was not for the direction of those lines.
This is getting to be more and more of a puzzle.

AI is unable to help as well. It's guess is oak.

 

[bigealta]

After searching Oak relatives,
The closest end grain i can find is Elm. Not a perfect match but pretty close sort of. Not sure anything else - bark, wood is very close, but i'm no elm expert either, even though i have a Princeton elm i planted 15 years ago in front of my house.

 

[bigealta]

I think I’m getting close to figuring this out. The closest I can find to the end grain patterns is “field elm”
1st 2 pics are the field elm, 3rd one with red circle is my mystery piece.

 

[bigealta]

Field elm bark

 

[all night moe]

Very interesting bigealta. Not to throw more confusion at you....years ago I worked with an arborist who went to forestry school in Montana. He once told me there are something like 60 different types of oak in North America. Maybe closer to 80 as I don't recall the exact number. This was 22yrs ago.

You're not to far from me and things have a way of getting around. The oaks up here i have listed as the common red, white, and black. Then there's also live oak, which is listed in the BTU chart or weight chart of green woods. Again, I'm working from distant memory. I've also heard the name swamp oak in the past, but that's most likely a slang name. Another common is pin oak, which is in the red family I believe. The pin has a red looking leaf with similar grains and bark. The unmistakable characteristic is it's branch growth. Very straight horizontal and spiny looking. Not a tree one wants to climb for pruning. It's like maneuvering through spruce growth. It could be possible that your example is uncommon to your area like mentioned.

Lastly I was viewing your last pics and they do have elm resemblance. Up here we have the common American (white), red, and Siberian (or Chinese) elms. I've never heard of Princeton or field elm before. Cool to learn something....LOL

I viewed most of this thread using just the thumbnails. Slow to load internet this morning. Perhaps our provider needs to use a heavier gauged cable made of gold.