I get one or two of these trees a year during my scrounges and was always curious what type of wood it was. Usually forgot about it once it was CSS so since I just split some yesterday, figured I would finally try to determine the tree. It splits like a dream, with very little effort and clean splits (no strings). Relatively smooth bark like beech (but darker). Best I can come up with for this geographic location is hornbeam.
Looks like maple to me. The American hop hornbeam AKA Ironwood AKA musclewood around me has smoother bark.
Definitely not hophornbeam, I was leaning towards hornbeam (muscle wood). I hadn't considered red maple.
looks like red maple to me ..... in my experience with iron wood is the bark kinda looks like flaky white oak bark with birch typed leaves
Yep, likely red maple, also called swamp maple or soft maple... Dries quick... I have a lot, great to start fires and for the cooler spring and fall seasons.
I have to jump on board with red maple. I got a about a half cord of similar looking wood that I asked for ID on here recently. Everyone piled on the red maple ID. So I’m gonna say red maple, now that I actually know. Can’t wait to chuck in the stove this winter! This is the pic I posted for ID earlier this summer. EVERYONE said red maple. Looks very similar to yours, no? Not all of the red maple I got has the red line down the middle of the wood - just a few pieces. Also, I live in a climate with almost zero humidity, so the bark on the trees doesn’t tend to be as dark here.
Good on ya Cash. People say its soft and whatever but it only burns a few degrees lower than a hard wood and it only takes a little more filling of the stove. I like it very much and got another 5 or 6 cords to deal with up at the horse run when it gets cooler.
I get a lot of what I call swamp maple growing in the power line easement area of my property. However, they never grow large enough to bother with for firewood before they get cut by the power line contractors so I never paid that much attention to them. I get a lot of silver maple (too much really) and for some reason, my mind always thinks of maple bark as being like silver or sugar maple, not smooth like red maple. Now that everyone has pointed it out to me, I have to say , I should have known. Just not used to pulling red (swamp) maple out of my scrounging areas so didn't connect the dots. Many thanks for the assistance with the ID. One BTU chart shows my favorite (beech) at 27,800 BTU, red oak at 27,300, ash at 25,000 and red maple at 24,000. I burn a lot of white birch, which is rated at 23,400 so red maple looks good to me (silver maple comes in at 21,700). I've also read where it is considered an invasive species so the more that is cut down, the more the 'native' species can grow.
Cash Larue, quite a few of the rounds I split (that I now know are red maple) have had that distinctive dark center line like the picture you're showing. Definitely the same as what you have.
It will burn nice after a year css Sgt but 2 is better for sure. Nobody can lose with this stuff! Loon
Have you referred to the chart in the resources section of the forum? Firewood BTU & Drying Chart I dont agree with some but its still a decent chart.
Some of the numbers are off based on research ive done online. Black locust should be a lot higher on the chart.
