Do I have some black gum on my hands?

Hi Everyone,

Got out cutting this weekend and took down a nice dead standing elm. I was able to get 4 other smaller trees as well (trunk about the diameter of a yankee candle, little bigger). Those were a a sassafras, red maple, red oak, and this tree in question. I was looking at the bark, wood, and leaves and was really stumped, I've never seen this tree before.

Got out my handy "Common Trees of PA" handbook and quickly found a leaf that matched. I did some further research and I'm pretty confident its a black gum. These small trees can be tough to ID, mature black gum bark is very distinct but on this one I can only envision black gum bark if I stare really hard now that I know that's what it is. Don't know much about these other than they are tough to split (least I have hydraulic and its small) and that they have medium BTU's. I've read sweet gum is prone to rot and punking, is black gum the same? Any idea what kind of BTU's it has? I'm thinking similar to soft maple maybe? Anyway, doesn't matter too much as I have a very small amount of it but I never hesitate to expand my knowledge.

The small amount of oak will go with my other freshly split oak, the maple, sass, and gum will all get tossed with the elm since I figure them to all have similar BTU content and drying time.







The elm



The full load

 

Yes I think so. I have one in my yard and the small branches look just like that

 

And a little bonus there on the tailgate. Looks like butcher paper... Deer sausage???

 

Haha good eye! Nope, actually that's 2 hoagies we picked up for dinner, the little container is oil on the side.

 

How is that winch mounted?

 

Don't have the pics right in front of me (actually can't remember where the heck they are saved) but its mounted to back bed rail behind the window. The bed is skirted/plated with 3" angle iron, then there is a boss constructed by the winch out of 1/8 or 1/4 plate, I forget. The winch is mounted to that boss. The bed rail angle iron is then tied into the bed cross members up by the cab with more angle iron. It's the old man's invention, I don't question it haha. It really doesn't get used much because he still has to tie everything into the frame real good so that its mounted as well as it can be. He doesn't drive the truck much so if I'm going out on the weekend and he feels like tagging along I'm more than happy to let him get the truck out for a spin.

 

Yeah, and the leaves turn a dazzling red in the fall, even better than in that pic.

 

Hey c'mon you didn't have to go hurting my leaves feelings....they tried

 

Interesting. Sounds like a pretty good system

 

So on that basis, you have more than Black Gum on your hands?..................LOL

 

I now know why black gum is one of the hardest species to split, even those small rounds held themselves together for dear life. Never saw wood do that before, so interlocked as it was coming apart, crazy.

Did get that whole load busted up yesterday, here is a shot when I was about to get into the meat and potatoes. Love slicing up these big rounds. And that lovely elm smell...mmmm mmm mmmmm

 

Not dissing your leaves, by any means. They look a lot like what I usually see, but once in a while you'll get that perfect tree that turns totally red.

I had heard bad things about splitting it, and after your description I'm in no hurry to try it.

Well, I should be out there getting more wood stacked, but...