Absolutely 100% sure sherwood. One thing I have noticed with ID on trees especially when I'm tapping , the bark doesn't always look the same . I have a woods with a few hundred sugar maples and side by side the bark on those younger trees really can look alot different. I'd swear it's an oak until I look up at the canopy at times. Another thing that helps me with ID is actually other trees. Example, Beech , especially large ones , are real easy to ID here. You find beech and chances are there are sugar maples around as well.
I'm not questioning whether it is hophornbeam. If you say it is, I am sure it is. In person, the tree is quite easy to identify. I just couldn't tell , because the picture, at least on my computer was not sharp. I am curious if the bark looks like mine, that's all. Mine is very shaggy when a tree is anywhere near that size. Very young it is shiny and could be mistaken for white birch or cherry.
Yeah, we don't really have any ironwood here. Some around here call beech, ironwood, but its not. The two have totally different bark. So I wouldn't know ironwood by seeing it , even if you hit me over the head with it.
My neighbors that have been "sugaring" for generations swear that the Beeches affect the sugar content in the nearby Maples. ?? I'd like to try Birch syrup some day, for that matter Walnut and all the others.
Fuelrod, Do you mean that the beech trees have a negative or a positive effect on the sugar content? Trying to get my head around the idea, an if it is real, what the relationship might be. If you are in a climax forest in the NE you pretty much always have beech and sugar together.
There's beech and sugar maples in my cutting woods. We used to make maple syrup from that woods back in the 80s.
Woohoo!!! It didn't exactly look like ironwood to me in the picture, but all the other guesses were taken and ironwood has pretty darn smooth bark. I'll send you a PM wishlist, I'm really looking forward to trying that walnut syrup, I never knew there was such a thing!
Here ya go sherwood. Thanks all for having some fun. Congrats to bassjam , hope you enjoy your syrup.
Crap. I forgot all about ironwood.... Probably because we don't think of the fruit as a nut. Not much to it. But that's okay. Congratulations bassjam.
Thanks, Wishlist. Very typical Ironwood. Looks to be a pretty decent size tree for an Ironwood. Do you know the DBH?
Well I couldn't make it too easy Dennis. I still had you as the odds on favorite to get it tho. Bassjam earned the syrup !
It's a decent size tree, roots and all came out . I worked on the oak today but won't pass up the ironwood.
On my property, when an Ironwood goes over it has usually been long dead and the base has rotted, The roots are small and shallow and always come out of the ground when the tree finally gives up the ghost. All the wood in the tree except the lowest inch or two of the base will be fine.
Mmmmm, had some of the walnut syrup over pancakes this morning. Thanks so much wishlist, it's great stuff!!!
