Catalpa maybe. Heartwood color and grain texture look right. Although the first pic doesn't look like any I've seen before. The wood will be soft and seasons to a light weight. Did it have any of the long beans on it? Unless you found the chunks at the dump.
BuckeyeFootball got it! Russian olive! Had to clear a bunch of it on the job I was helping with. This was one of the biggest ones I’ve seen so I saved 4-5 rounds just to try it. Seems pretty dense and hard as you cut it. Just seems like it should be decent firewood. But it is tough to get and 8” seems to be a good sized one. So it’s doubtful that anyone is likely to score a whole pickup load.
More of a shrub almost, often growing almost horizontally just up above the root flare and ground level, lots of thorns, lots of sprouts and shoots coming out of the base with lots of thorns. A real pain in the ash to flush cut at the ground. Oh, and did I mention lots of thorns?
That stuff was put in for windbreaks on a lot of homesteads around here. It’s all over the unmaintained crp & in lots of road ditches. I have never seen any that big though.
Yeah I think I’ve heard of it being used much like hedge for conservation efforts. It seems to do best in unmaintained wetter areas
A quick google search and Wikipedia would have one believe that the human race would probably not be any worse off if’n it was to become extinct. Once again, another imported invasive species
That stuff is really invasive. 60 years ago the property next door was all pussy willow. The russian olive has displaced it and there is no pussy willow left. It's everywhere around town in ditches, eventually growing out into the road. They cut it down but it just grows right back. Ive had some about half that size. Never tried burning any of it.
