Wood ID quiz

[Wood Duck]

A couple of weeks ago at a boy scout camp in Central Pennsylvania, we cut up a tree that had fallen near our campsite, and I thought the pictures would be a fun quiz for the firewood ID enthusiasts among us. I know what the tree was, by the way. All processing from fallen tree to the splits you see was done using a Fiskar's pro splitter ax.

 

[thewoodlands]

If the leaves belong to the tree then oak but I've never seen oak cut and split.


zap

 

[oldspark]

Now that zap mentions oak, the bark looks like the bark on the red oak I planted 10 years ago.

 

[Wood Duck]

Hint: The leaves are not meant to be a clue. They are White Oak leaves that are all over the woods up there.

 

[golfandwoodnut]

still have to say red oak.

 

[wooddope]

Me thinks red oak as well...but this feels like a trap. By the look of those cuts, the saw needs sharpening :lol:

 

[Wood Duck]

It is not Red Oak.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Hmmm... could be a young hickory... but heartwood seems too dark for a hickory young enough to have bark that looks like that.


Wood looks sort of like cherry, but bark is way off...

 

[NH_Wood]

Bark reminds me of a big striped maple, but.....I've never seen one that big! Cheers!

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Looks like the oak I was bucking last week, but I don't know if it was red or white. There are white oak leaves all over the pics and PA is considered Chestnut/Oak climax forest, sans most of the chestnut.

Matt

 

[billb3]

too much white sapwood for red oak IMO and a bit too much contrast between the red and white, more like cedar, but it's not cedar.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess ash or poplar of some type

 

[wood-fan-atic]

That is the bark of an oak, so Im thinkin white Oak.

 

[thewoodlands]

A couple of weeks ago at a boy scout camp in Central Pennsylvania, we cut up a tree that had fallen near our campsite, and I thought the pictures would be a fun quiz for the firewood ID enthusiasts among us. I know what the tree was, by the way. All processing from fallen tree to the splits you see was done using a Fiskar's pro splitter ax.

Second guess would be Black Maple.

zap

 

[gzecc]

Don't know the species although it looks like those rounds were chopped with an axe not cut with a chainsaw. Bark looks like poplar, wood I don't know.

 

[kubota]

Red maple maybe?

 

[Wood Duck]

OK, below is a hint DON"T LOOK IF YOU WANT TO ID WITHOUT ASSISTANCE!



The pictures include splits made from the trunk of the tree, and for it's species, it was a big one.

 

[mtarbert]

My amature guess i Hickory....Our son calls it chocolate and vanilla

 

[golfandwoodnut]

I will guess dogwood since they do not get very big. Never burned any that I know of.

 

[NH_Wood]

Where's the hint WoodDuck? Cheers!

 

[heus]

It is 100% pignut hickory. No doubt.

 

[kubota]

chestnut....??

 

[Wood Duck]

The hint was in the email with the warning about the hint: I wrote that this was a big tree for its species. You can see the main trunk, chopped and split, in the photos. In other words, this type of tree doesn't get real big. At about 12 or 14 inches diameter, this was a very big one.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

chestnut....??

Could very well be. It is a climax species for the area. I've only seen one and didn't have the frame of mind to look at the bark. I don't like bark IDs anyway. It changes too much over the life of the tree. Do you have a leaf pic? I remember that the leaves were very serate. Can you tell me which side of the mountain and how far up it you were?

IIRC from the woodworking forums chestnut wood was supposed to be a mellow buttery color. That doesn't look like the case here.

Lets look at the other trees with blights...

Cornus florida-Flowering dogwood - never saw a mature one, but the really young ones have a very smooth bark.

Ulmus americana-still get pretty big up here. Elm is far from rare and the bark is super rough.

I can't think of another tree that that would be a large trunk...

I'm still guessing oak. Bur or pin maybe?

 

[EatenByLimestone]

http://www.duke.edu/~cwcook/trees/cade.html

Good pics of Chestnut bark.

Matt

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Gut is telling me this:

(broken link removed to http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioimages/species/quru.htm)


Matt