If it looks like poison ivy it's probably box elder. I've never personally cut any but this is what I've read.
Box elder. The inside is bright red when it's first cut. But only if the the tree has been injured I think. My buddy was cutting and saw blood red chips and thought he hit his foot with a chainsaw. He freaked it was funny. The red turns brown after it oxidizes
Box Elder AKA "Ashleaf Maple". According to the BTU charts, it's on par with silver maple. I have some in the woods but I've never bothered with it so far - tends to be sort of a scrubby tree here and it's usually rotted out if it's already on the ground. That one is one of the nicest I've seen.
The leaves sure look like Boxelder, and that was my initial thought. But the bark don't look like it. It was the only kind of tree growing in my yard when we were kids. I've cut a lot of it. I think the difference in bark is a regional thing between east and west coast. So....., Boxelder takes it so far.Any more votes?
I just split a few pieces yesterday. My boxelder was all kinds of red in the center also. Was very easy to split. Not to many people seem to like it, but I seem to find a lot of it.
That's also what I thought lol. The bark up top looks like a young poplar but the leaf is box elder. Off topic I've thought about tapping a few to see how they taste, the Canadians do it!
Thanks all for the input. Sounds like Box Elder. I've never burned any of it, so it will be something new. That's always fun. It'll get cut down and bucked in a few days, and I will post a picture of a round. For me at least, that is the telling picture, to see "inside".
Well, it is in the maple family. Why not give it a try? I've also thought about tapping a birch or three. A friend of ours also taps walnut and it is delicious but takes a lot of taps and sap to make a gallon.
If you have any friends that turn wood, they might like some box elder. I have seen pieces turned from BE and it is beautiful.
Did not think we had box elder here in western Washington. It well be interesting to see the pics once you get it bucked and split
Box elder is at 17.9 mbtu's on the scale, a tad better than silver maple. It burns nicely, but fairly quickly. It dries very quickly though, so if cut and split, and allowed to dry in a stack or however you want to do it, it could even be ready to burn this heating season. A moisture meter will tell you where or not it will burn nicely this year though. The trunk does look pretty ashy though, but it's got to be elder.
If it is indeed box elder it was definitely brought here and planted, here is a map that i took of Wikipedia of box elder native locations and nothing in the PNW
It may be the black sheep of the maple family but you'd never know by the syrup! I have a few on my property that I tap. It makes a fine maple syrup. The only real difference between all the maple varieties is sugar content of sap. Boxelder is on par with red maple for sugaring purposes.
