Two Trees in One

Well, not really. Cut a red maple for outdoor campfire wood. When splitting it, came across something I don;t believe I ever saw before. When young, the tree must have been wounded and then "compartmentalized" walling off then continuing to grow. I have noticed this before on smaller scale, but never entire length of tree. Inner part did not split well, outer part easy as red maple usually does, and if split right, inner part would fall right out. Unusual and pretty looking!

 

I’ve seen this with honey locust several times.

 

Pretty cool. Ive had that happen on splits before. Dont remember the species

 

I've never seen that.

 

I’ve seen that on a red oak once. Was about a 4” cylinder right up the trunk. Strange.

 

I have seen this with Red Maple a few times.

 

Man, thats neat as heck really.

 

Ring shake

 

I have seen it once before, pretty cool! I really like maple, don’t cut it much.

 

I had a similar observation, when splitting some red oak last year.



Before splitting. You can make out the circle around the middle of the rounds.

 

Is it from the tree being violently blown enough to separate the core somewhere in its life?

 

Ring shake. Had a silver maple exhibit that last fall when bucking into firewood. Nice clean 3" diameter core running 30' up the tree.

 

What causes ring shake? Google says, "Bacteria that causes shake (by weakening the wood) moves about 1" per year up the stem. It enters the trees through the roots and not through the stem. Shake is a separation of the rings of the wood parallel to the rings and not across the rings."

 

That’s really interesting. Thanks for posting!

 

I've seen that numerous times over the years...didn't know what caused it before though.
Barcroftb have any additional knowledge to add here?

 

The heartwood of a large yellow cedar,didn't think to take more pictures .

 

I had six of those in the maple I split over the weekend. All grew together to form one tree and all separated into 3 inch rounds during the splitting. See it a lot in the EWP around here.

 

dont know if this counts but the red oak i sectioned this morning sort of did the same thing.

 

I find it is common in dead standing red oak larger than 20”

 

No need. Guys already nailed it. Ring/wind shake is caused by bacteria or fungus. The tree attempts to compartmentalize. Heartwood is non living tissue the living tissue with separate to keep the rot contained.