Hey guys and gals. The good ole wood identification question. I'm sure you've gotten millions...so here's another! haha As far as foliage or layout of branching I cannot say anything as these were a random score of trees that were cut down by the Village I live in. Split nicely, not overly wet or heavy. Not stringy, as you can see. Smells almost "spicy" once freshly cut or split. Here's some pictures: The one in the center of the picture. Split side view. Much darker heart wood. End view. Tree was growing along roadside in a heavily wooded if that helps at all. Like nothing I've burned before. But she'll burn! Just curious if anyone has an "ahaaa" moment seeing this. I'm weird and like to know what I'm burning.
Bark pics look like Tupelo, but Tupelo doesn't split easy so thats out. I want to say White oak, but not quite sure.
Hickory would be nice! The only types of hickory I'm familiar with are shell and shagbark. A guy I often get wood from today guessed it was some type of elm. But I thought elm split very stringy and difficult? The smell is what really threw me off. Almost smells like cedar or wood bedding for small animals. But obviously it is not cedar. I should also add, that many of the smaller pieces had thousands of tiny holes in them (likely from insects I assume) and had partially peeling bark. I know you shouldn't transport possibly sick wood, but it was literally from about a mile from my property.
That is red elm, in my opinion. Has a very spicy scent, dark heartwood, and isn't terrible to split. The bark, color and grain have me convinced......
That is what my wood guy guessed too. A type of elm. He said like swamp elm or pizz elm. So I think you may be right. Two people thinking it's elm, that's a good chance haha. All those indicators line up. Definitely a VERY distinct spice smell.
White, hard, and hot...eh, Dave....I think it’s Feed Thong wood.... I mite lean towards an elm species too, Benjamin Turner, but spicy is not the way I would describe any pizzy elm.
hmm...then maybe it's not. Why i'm so confused by it. That smell is best described as hamster bedding or like a wooden dry sauna smell. If that makes any sense lol
Wet, pungent bedding....pizz elm (or around here, Siberian Elm)....yuck smell, but burns well when dried about 2 years CSS’d...
Post up a couple more pics of the bark please, possibly a couple of different pieces. I think it may not be any elm at all.
i have tons upon tons of white oak, both standing and cut and split.. Probably 4 cords worth bucked in my pile now to be split... That doesnt look like it at all.
it's not pizz elm....my yard is lined with them and they don't split well. Whatever this is, I'm pretty sure I got the same exact thing about a year ago and thought about posting an ID request for it as well, but I ended up burning it all already. It got light when seasoned, and like you said, it's not really heavy anyway. That would make me think it's not a hickory or oak species. Any chance it's a chestnut species? I don't know much about chestnut but the bark looks similar to stuff I've seen around here.
The diamond patterns seen in a couple of the pics remind me of some type of poplar, possibly white? Slightly unpleasant smell and fairly easy splitting would also be consistent.
Well, now I split up the rest of all of it that I had with my splitter instead of maul. It's a bit warmer today (41F) and it did split like chit today. Very stringy and hard to get apart. The first few pieces I split when it was around 5F or so it split nicely with the maul. So maybe it is dag burn elm...mysterious indeed.
Does it smell like Jack Daniels? If it does, you have white oak. It splits too nice for any elm I have ever split...
