My wife and I went for a hike out back in the woods this evening right before sunset. The eastern boundary of our property is very steep initially and the climb is a good leg burner. We call our foot trail that climbs the hill over there, “Billy Goat Trail.” Haven’t been up that trail in a long while. We got a little ways up and the trail was blocked by a monster blow down - I assume from the recent ice storm. Tree came down on our side of the old stone wall that separates our property from the neighbors. The canopy of the tree crashed into one of the sugar maples I have flagged to add in to our sugaring operation in the future. Luckily no damage to the maple. I’ve laid eyes on this tree many times but never really gave it much attention. It’s surrounded by large diameter white ash trees and sugar maples. The maples always draw more of my attention... Anyways, this one is really throwing me around as far as IDing goes. Need some help figuring it out. It’s the only tree of its kind on the hill or anywhere on our property that I know of. Southern facing hill. Large diameter. I’ve gone through the book on the trees I don’t see often and don’t know very well such as elms and basswood. Thought maybe it was some weird variability in the bark of a tulip. Same with ash (twigs and buds rule out ash immediately). Can’t land on anything definitive. Here’s some pictures - Here’s a picture with my boot at the base of the tree for an idea of its size. I wear a size 12.5. Bark on the branches peels away like so: Here’s the twigs and buds from the very top of the tree. Sorry the pictures are a little blurry.
The bark looks just like Silver Maple to me. Not sure about the buds. One of the soft Maples. Very infested by something, Ambosia Beetle maybe.
Basswood. Pic of basswood i scored couple weeks ago. Good SS wood. Splits like cake with an axe. Seasons fast. Its like EWP without the sap. Id grab it.
Basswood, I have some trees. The bark peels right off like in the pic shows, in fact in the winter, Red Squirrels peel it off and eat it, I've seen them.
Lot of Basswood coming up in the forum lately. Not familiar with the tree at all, honestly didn't even know it grew in this area. Handling the wood at a lumber yard years back I called it cellulose based Styrofoam. Had to look it up. Some interesting stuff, lots of uses for all parts of the tree beyond just the wood and several uses for the wood I wasn't familiar with. It's not one of the rock stars of the hardwood world. But I'm going to be keeping an eye out for it now when I'm hiking in the bottomlands. This one is a three part-er, I'll just post the first part.
Basswood, very cool! I’ve learned a ton here on the forum this past week. Definitely a new one for me - can’t say I’ve ever seen a basswood (and known it) or worked on one. Lot of the tree looks like it could have good wood still, despite the obvious signs of infestation. Bottom near the base it certainly was rotting. Lot of pileated woodpecker holes. This one is going to stay there for the critters mostly. I can get close with the ATV but would never be able to get up to it given the steepness of the hill. And the base of the hill holds a decent size patch of wild ramps, so I don’t want to be riding around there. Perhaps I’ll hike up with my smaller saw and Isocore and take a bit of the limb wood if it’s still good. Haul it out in my old trap basket. Maybe make some carving blocks to sell. I’d also like to burn a few pieces just to see what it’s like in the wood stove. Kind of a bummer that it was unhealthy and came down. Was a big tree. I’m going to ask the neighbors if they mind that I take a walk around that area of their property to look for other examples of basswood. I’m almost positive there are no others around there on our side of the stone wall but I’ll go out looking specifically now. Thanks for the replies and links and insight. I passed off basswood when looking at a guide because the bark wasn’t as deeply furoughed as the picture in the guide. But looking at the examples posted here and some other pictures online I see there are plenty of examples of basswood that looks similar or exactly the same.
I had never seen one or knew of it growing in my woods til i cut it then posted that thread. The tree i cut had flexed to a partial arch under the weight of wet snow. Too bad about the terrain. I have some rugged hills here too so i know what you are saying. Pileateds are so cool. I see and hear them around here on occasion. My bucket list bird to get at our feeder/suet.
Tell your neighbors about how the falling tree put your sugar maple in jeopardy, and the you'd like to check for others that could cause damage to other sugar maples. Invite the neighbor to walk around with you.
Nothing wrong with that. Maybe a good place to put a trail cam and see what it brings... I wouldn't risk the Ramps over it either. One of those three part bushcraft videos talks about Coppicing... Maybe cutting the stump down close to the ground will produce some shoots.
If the basswood is in in good shape, not rotting or getting punky, you might be able to sell or trade some of the larger pieces off to wood carvers. Duck decoys and etc. are generally made from basswood. Larger pieces tend to be valuable.
It’s more of a neighboring property than actual neighbors. 160 acres owned by a guy who lives in Florida. It abuts our entire east and north boundary. No house or buildings on it. All I know is he intends to keep it forested so that’s a plus. Nice guy. Shouldn’t be an issue to take a walk around. Being a landowner myself I try to be respectful and get permission before stepping over the walls here.
I’m going to try and take a couple pieces from it this weekend to check it out. I wouldn’t mind seeing a carver take a piece or two and making something out of it.
With Basswood that size it likely reproduced look for smaller stems with grey bark and bright red buds in th near vicinity.eat the buds they are good . Likely from the stump many more trees will emerge Wood is good........ enjoy
