Wood ID

[PaulF]

I have some logs someone gave me (central North Carolina) that I do not know their tree name. I do not have any leaves to help. The trunk was about 2 feet in diameter and the bark is furrowed deeply - thickness over 1 inch. The wood splits easily and is a light color. Splits are heavier than poplar, but far lighter than oak.

Can you identify it from the attached photos?

PaulF

 

[smokinj]

Cotton.

 

[Remmy122]

Not sure if cotton grows around here, but Tulip does. Thats my bet.

 

[smokinj]

Not sure if cotton grows around here, but Tulip does. Thats my bet.

Bark is way to deep for tulip. (Its our state tree lol)

 

[PaulF]

It is an Eastern Cottonwood, and the map shows it does range into many parts of NC. I had lots of tulip poplar trees down after hurricane Fran, and their bark is not deeply furrowed.

See: http://forestry.about.com/od/hardwoods/tp/Populus_deltoides.htm

Here is a good photo of the bark:
http://www.cottonwoodz.com/tree/cottonwoodtree.htm


PaulF

 

[CTYank]

Tulip poplar also easily identified by the greenish heartwood, and the aroma.

Not to mention the size (around here.)

 

[CountryBoy19]

Color of the wood?

Can you see a difference between heartwood and sapwood?

That bark looks an aweful lot like the Flowering Dogwood I cut last fall. But flowering dogwood doesn't get too large, so if this is a large tree I would rule it out.

Bark does not look like the cottonwood that I normally see.

Isn't there also a gum tree that has bark similar to that?

 

[Wood Duck]

I think that is an old Black Gum. They aren't a really big tree and I have never seen them as a dominant (most common) tree in any part of the forest so they aren't very well known, but they grow as understory or scattered trees over a wide area of the US. I have seen a few that have trunks over two feet in diameter and those big ones get a really thick bark like the pics show but have whitish, lightweight wood. I don't think Black Gum is particularly closely related to Sweetgum, but both tend to be stringy, I think.

 

[FireBall]

Hard to tell from the pictures what it is. Wood Duck may be right, could be Black Gum- if so, it will be VERY hard to split.