Trad Gang

Main Boards => PowWow => Topic started by: M P Clark on May 29, 2014, 07:27:00 PM

Title: what tree is this
Post by: M P Clark on May 29, 2014, 07:27:00 PM
Can someone help me identified this tree species. My dad thinks its walnut. The bark is very dark, very thick, and has deep valleys. When you cut through the bark, the under layer starts bright yellow and quickly changes to bright orange. The first wood layer appears almost solid white. The leaves have a main shoot with leaves on both sides. Leaves are football shape and couldn't tell if they are serated. Here are some picks.
  (http:// [url=http://s1375.photobucket.com/user/mp_clark/media/Mobile%20Uploads/2014-05-29154825_zps4a023807.jpg.html] [img]http://i1375.photobucket.com/albums/ag441/mp_clark/Mobile%20Uploads/2014-05-29154825_zps4a023807.jpg)[/url] [/IMG]  
 
  (http:// [url=http://s1375.photobucket.com/user/mp_clark/media/Mobile%20Uploads/2014-05-29154833_zps7b24691d.jpg.html] [img]http://i1375.photobucket.com/albums/ag441/mp_clark/Mobile%20Uploads/2014-05-29154833_zps7b24691d.jpg)[/url] [/IMG]  
  (http:// [url=http://s1375.photobucket.com/user/mp_clark/media/Mobile%20Uploads/2014-05-29160114_zpsde7d8e2c.jpg.html] [img]http://i1375.photobucket.com/albums/ag441/mp_clark/Mobile%20Uploads/2014-05-29160114_zpsde7d8e2c.jpg)[/url] [/IMG]
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: britt on May 29, 2014, 07:29:00 PM
Leaves look like walnut. But the walnut around here has darker bark.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: Hummer3T on May 29, 2014, 07:30:00 PM
Do you have pictures of the leafs and trig junctions.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: rraming on May 29, 2014, 07:36:00 PM
Black walnut I think, does it drop green balls all over the place that the squirrels eat?  If so the heartwood is valuable if you can find someone to pay you for it. If you are in a city, they usually will not.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: M P Clark on May 29, 2014, 07:40:00 PM
I couldn't get close enough to the leaves. Tallest one was probably 80 + feet. Trunk was about 3 feet. I'm 6' and still had six inches to go when I hugged it. (I know tree hugger). The trunks grow pretty straight then will take a angler bend of maybe 8 to 10 degrees. Go straight again and the bend again.  Location was in western wv, near Huntington.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: M P Clark on May 29, 2014, 07:44:00 PM
I'm going to harvest a couple trees off the property. I've picked a large wild cherry, walnut would be great too. Just not sure what this tree would be. Any chance it could be osage orange?
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: PaulDeadringer29 on May 29, 2014, 07:46:00 PM
Looks like walnut to me too.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: M P Clark on May 29, 2014, 07:48:00 PM
I'm not selling the wood. Keeping it projects / wood working and of course bow building.

One last thing that stood out. It had these green finger looking sprouts. Kinda looked like fuze balls connected together in a line. 4 or 5 grouped together about 5 inches long.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: macbow on May 29, 2014, 07:51:00 PM
Not Osage, Osage leaves are alternating.
Walnut.  How about pecan?
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: ScouterMike on May 29, 2014, 07:58:00 PM
That looks like a butternut tree. Also called a white walnut. They are apparently getting scarce because of a fungus disease.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: JDBerry on May 29, 2014, 08:17:00 PM
Maybe a Flowering Locust?
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: Knawbone on May 29, 2014, 08:33:00 PM
The Butternut tree is usually smaller than it's cousin the Black Walnut, but the bark and catkins tells me it could be a very large Butternut. Butternuts prefer a colder climate than the Walnut, so the location of the tree corresponds especially if it's growing at altitude. Butternuts can reach 3' in dia. and 90' tall. Tea made from the inner bark was used as a laxative and dye for cloths ect. I have also used it's nut hulls as well as the walnut's hulls as a trap dye. Wood is soft and not considered a good bow wood. The bark bark and size of the tree however points to the tree being a B. Walnut. Butternut bark is a medium grey color with a simular texture. From the picture I would say it's a Black Walnut.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: M P Clark on May 29, 2014, 08:58:00 PM
Been surfing images and leaning towards the black walnut. Which will make me happy. Although was kinda hoping for osage. No way are we going to harvest that monster tree though. Probably one with a diameter of a foot to foot and a half.  Thanks guys for you thoughts.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: Orion on May 29, 2014, 09:31:00 PM
Yellow is unusual for walnut, even in the sapwood area.  Good chance it's Black locust, a relative of Osage that makes a good bow.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: HMlongbow on May 29, 2014, 09:42:00 PM
I believe that to be a beach walnut if not mistaken from my tree trimming days
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: Knawbone on May 29, 2014, 09:55:00 PM
That's interesting Hitman,I'v have never heard of Beach Walnut, but that would explain the yellow underbark.The leaves are too pointed to be locust, and the size of the trunk is too large also.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: smoke1953 on May 29, 2014, 09:57:00 PM
Locust
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: jackdaw on May 29, 2014, 10:13:00 PM
Dwfinately not a dogwood....you can tell them by their "bark"...ha!
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: RLA on May 29, 2014, 10:14:00 PM
Black Walnut
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: Stump73 on May 29, 2014, 10:29:00 PM
Easiest way to tell osage is the friut are green and its the size of grape fruit and looks like brains. Other name is headgeapple. The heart wood is bright yellow. The tree itself is usually twisted up and sometimes hard to find straight enough logs to get a good length for a bow.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: **DONOTDELETE** on May 29, 2014, 10:53:00 PM
That is a Black Walnut tree. no doubt about it.  i have one just like it in my front yard.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: Daniel G. Banting on May 29, 2014, 11:34:00 PM
Butternut ( sometimes called White Walnut ) and Black Walnut are of the same family. An easy way to tell the difference between the two is by the leaf configuration. A Butternut has two leaves directly opposed on the stem. Black Walnut they are staggered. The wood of Butternut is very similar in grain and colour ( that would be Canadian)to Ash.

Regards,
Dan
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: Bowwild on May 30, 2014, 07:20:00 AM
It looks like a black walnut (Juglans nigra.

This is one of the easiest of all trees to identify.  The leaves are compound which means many leaflets coming off one leaf stem.

The buds on the end of twigs are quite large and fuzzy.

Wood bark is dark, thick, and deeply contoured.

The best of all i.d. points is to cut a twig laterally (length-wise down the middle. The "pith" will be chambered instead of solid.

If this was an 80' tree with a clear bole of at least 8 feet long and 16" in diameter, it could be worth a lot.

The sapwood by the way, just under the bark, is light on the Black Walnut just like it is on many woods that are known (heartwood) to be much darker.

When in the Ohio squirrel woods in the fall you'll sometimes here a faint, rapid scraping. That's the sound of a squirrel gnawing through the nut hull.  It takes 11 Black Walnuts to get a squirrel through a hard winter day. Lot of meat inside but a lot of energy is burned getting too it. (Burr oak by contrast only takes 3 acorns/day to feed a squirrel.)

Sorry about the length of this but it has been a long time (38 years) since I studied this tree.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: jackdaw on May 30, 2014, 07:30:00 AM
Looks "butternutish" to me...
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: creekwood on May 30, 2014, 06:40:00 PM
A locust has smoother bark than what is in your picture.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: shag08 on May 30, 2014, 06:56:00 PM
A picture is worth a thousand words....but they can also be misleading. I'm 99% positive the tree in question is black walnut. I'm a logger. I also had the good fortune to move about 17,000 feet of dandy black walnut this week.

White walnut (butternut) has completely different bark. It is more of a gray color and it has a smoother look to it, and it has a more open bark pattern...it's hard for me to describe trees to anybody. I've been around them my whole life so I never put enough thought into the way they look to make an attempt at making detailed worded descriptions.

Once you get past the dark black outer bark on a black walnut, it does look almost neon green/yellow before you get into the actual wood. The outer most wood is white...they call it the sap ring/sap wood. The more white there is...the less a veneer buyer will pay for it. Then you get into the beautiful black heart wood that walnut is famous for.

In the provided pictures, it's a black walnut.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: skychief on May 30, 2014, 07:05:00 PM
Listen to Shag.   I've been a timber buyer for over twenty years.  It's a black walnut.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: shag08 on May 30, 2014, 07:15:00 PM
On a side note....NEVER cut a hole through the bark on a tree to see what the inner wood looks like.

I know you said you plan to harvest the trees for yourself so it doesn't much matter in this case. But if the tree were left standing to continue to grow and mature, that would leave a permanent scar. Anytime the bark is penetrated into the wood It shows. The tree survives but it won't bring top dollar in most cases.

Even if it was Osage...let's say you cut the bark on it now just to see. If it wasn't big enough for your purposes yet but you intend to come back and cut it in, say, ten years. The hole you cut would be a rotten (maybe not in the case of Osage, but most other trees) place that ruined the tree. The bark grows back around the wound and that spot of sap wood that is exposed is damaged (bad wood).

Woodpeckers are HELL on timber for that very reason. If it wasn't illegal, I'd kill every woodpecker I saw!

Just food for thought from a loggers point of view.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: JamesKerr on May 30, 2014, 10:43:00 PM
Definitely an Walnut.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: Gooserbat on May 31, 2014, 12:43:00 PM
Black Walnut
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: Rustic on May 31, 2014, 03:38:00 PM
Looks like a Locust to me. Does it have thorns and a shallow root??
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: Sean B on May 31, 2014, 06:50:00 PM
I was going to say either black or honey locust. Is it in some what of a marshy area??
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: JimB on May 31, 2014, 07:12:00 PM
Locust leaves aren't pointed.
Title: Re: what tree is this
Post by: M P Clark on May 31, 2014, 10:30:00 PM
The trees are growing on a hill side with no marsh or swamp (all dry).  Also no thorns.

After reading these post and searching pictures on the net, pretty confident its black walnut.

In a couple weeks we are going to harvest the cherry and the tree in the pics.