Has a tree snap on a piece of the property we do not walk through much, so in true hoarder fashion, off I went with the chainsaw to get it bucked up, split and stacked. Figured it was oak as that mainly what’s in this small patch but once I started cutting it appears to be walnut. Can’t say I’ve ever seen a walnut on the ground and all the leaves on the ground are either red or white oak. What say you fellow hoarders?
Ha. HVBW was me joking around! I only cut wood to burn. Thanks for the id. I don’t remember red maple having such a distinct round brown center like that. Typically the brown is more like rays than perfectly circular.
Red maple varies a lot with the bark and wood grain. When they’re young they have smooth gray bark which gets dark brown and shaggy as they age. But I’ve seen 8” diameter red maple trunks that are shaggy, and 12” trunks that were still smooth and gray. A lot of them have that dark core (which is beginning stages of rot) but not all have it.
Hmmm, that is interesting what you said. I have noted that red maple does not get huge here, and often, it has a hollow center. Do you think that it just natural to the way they grow? Wonder why they do that, what would be the evolutionary reason for that, lol. Or does some critter/bug/disease do that? I also note that even youngish trees often have hollows. I've been doing 'crop release' on some maples, where if I find a beautiful, straight and tall one, I fell surrounding trees, and often in the same maple clump, so that, hopefully, the tall, straight stem can continue upwards healthily. I probably should research this since I have no clue if this is effective, lol. (Edit: I mean effective with maples.)
I’m no maple expert (I don’t have any in my woods) but that bark does not look anything like my walnuts.
Does have an elmy look to it, but after really studying it I say red maple as well. As Eric stated it can vary widely and not every tree has the ambrosia/spalting effect in the grain. Spit a few rounds and post pics RI Dan
I'm thinking y'all are right. The bark ain't "corky" enough to be elm. Plus, compared to the elm around here, the bark is too dark also.
A cross section of elm bark shows a layered "cookie" look, with lighter bands separating darker layers. It's hard to see on saplings but once the tree gets furrowed bark, it shows up. I see what you mean about this maple resembling elm though. Here's some American elm that I scored back in 2022 that had a very dark core similar to the OP's red maple. The leaves here leave no doubt though.
Here’s a few pics I just took from the stack. Center is not as dark today as it was when fresh split just a couple days ago.
Most recent pics look like red maple. The first pics in the thread are really dark, almost like a filter on the pic, even the white part is quite yellow. Rain wet maybe ? I have, unfortunately mostly red maple and eastern white pine on my few acres. Red maple can have some charcoal-ish streaks through it sometimes - not from iron like oak, though.
Thanks Bill. No filter and not wet when I took the pics, that’s how dark it was when fresh cut. Which was one of the reasons it threw me for a loop identifying it. That and the dark center being so round and not sunburst like other red maples I’ve cut. Typically have all oak and black birch dropped here so identifying the other wood species for me can be challenging.
