Admittedly, my skills at identifying trees sometimes come up short. For the longest time it simply didn't matter to me whether an oak was a pin oak or a red oak, or a maple was a silver or red. If it was a deciduous hardwood species, that's all that counted and I'd make firewood from it. That attitude has changed since joining this forum as I found it interesting learning all the different subspecies and variants within a tree family. Conifers are no longer wholesale labeled as "pine" and I can easily point out a Blue vs. a Norway Spruce, a Hemlock from a White Pine, and a Cedar stands out in stark contrast to all the others for me now. Last week I got a small roadside scrounge from a tree service job that was left at the curb for the taking. I easily identified the Eastern White Pine and took some, and the rest I thought was a Norway Maple yard tree. I split some today and had to reassess my original thought. Under the bark was evidence of EAB infestation. The grain was definitely not maple but quite different from the ash I'm used to getting. I think what I have here is GREEN Ash as apposed to the White Ash variety that's so prevalent in my area. If I'm still wrong, maybe someone here can point me in the right direction. Thanks
You about have to look at the twigs or seeds to separate the different Ash species. Even then it can be difficult.
I don’t know the difference between green and white. That looks like ash to me. I rarely cut down Ash. In 2011 I removed 24 autumn purple ash and a few others between 11 and 2020. This year I cut a handful more due to eab, but I don’t know if they where White or Green. Autumn Purple is White Ash. I know enough about them to know I never liked them. Constant dead twig drop, ash flower gall, bacterial leaf scorch, mistletoe and than eab. I don’t encounter them enough to have wanted to learn the difference.
The easiest way to tell green from white ash is by the bud and fruit, but, in most cases, the EAB has ruined that form ID. Green ash has a darker gray brown bark but sometimes that's not possible to see in a standing dead tree. Best thing to do is split it, stack it and burn it, without giving second thought as to which one it is. Blue ash is easy to distinguish from the green and white ash by the more scaly bark, plus the fact that most blue ash trees are still living. They seem to be way down on the EAB food chain.
I never had to deal with Ash from an arborist's perspective so I never got soured on them. Good BTU value and fast seasoning so I've regarded them as worth going out of my way to seek out. Surprisingly this is the first one I've gotten from an urban setting. They definitely grow differently from their counterparts in the forests.
I use an app called Picture This and recently was cutting down a white mulberry tree and had no idea what it was other than it was solid and hard as a rock. This app really worked good and now I use it more than I thought I would. I was in the same boat if its doesn't have needles or pine cones split it lol.
[ This stuff seems more dense too. Then again, it was still a live tree when it was cut. I'm so used to scrounging dead ones that perhaps I've forgotten how these trees are supposed to be.
The few times ive recognized one that ive scrounged as green ash, ive noticed that too, now that you mention it.
Plenty of our pine is <6", and it dries in round regardless of the diameter, always threw the smaller ones in whole.
[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ This is what happens when I manually edit things and don't pay extra attention. Let's all take a moment and be grateful I'm not a programmer for NASA
You should split pine and spruce! I love that stuff. Hard to split when wet but dries fast and burns fast. I like mixing it in with hardwood in the fireplace. Great for making kindling too (I have 4 ibc totes full). I've split some red ash rounds and posted pictures of it too. Distinctively more pungent than white ash. Don't think I've seen green ash.
Exactly. Identifying green and white ash is tough. Around here it's inconsequential as they are the same BTU wise, splitting ( hydros), and drying wise.
According to the Picture This app on my phone, the picture brad posted is a White Ash. I used it the other day to identify a plant I was given by a neighbor which turned out to be a Flamingo Flower. I just downloaded Picture This because of another thread. So far, it looks to be pretty accurate. Fwiw as I am a tree ID noob, I thought it looked just like the white ash I had split not too long ago.
