New guy here...trying to identify this tree (bark only)

First off, great site and very informative. I burn firewood in the winter and have almost 200 acres of hilly land to "shop around". I usually get what falls over, is dying, dead, or severely storm damaged first. Last month while I was hunting I came across a cluster of trees that fell over. A huge hackberry fell over and with it took out a couple of nice size black locust and this thing. I drug them out with the tractor, cut them up, but have yet to identify what exactly this one is. There were no leaves (winter and been down awhile) and the branches (no lower branches) were broke and mixed in with everything else in a dense wooded area. From looking online I was originally leaning towards either black gum or persimmon, as they both look identical to me especially with the bark variations of each, but the more I look, the less of those I see in it. I had a hunch that maybe it was possibly sassafras so I took a slice out of the bark to look for orange...but honestly I have a hard time telling if it's orange or not.

I'm in middle TN, there were none like it growing in the area, it was growing near the upper slope of a very big hill facing southward. Almost everything growing around it were either various hickory, ash, locust (black and honey), maple (red and sugar), beech, and hackberry.

I kind of like knowing what exactly I'm cutting and take an interest in the trees growing native to the area.

Thanks for any help

 

Hmmm.

Looks piney to me.

I have zero experience with persimmon or black gum, but it certainly appears to be a conifer to me.

 

Yes, welcome to FHC, Moparguy. I am not going to guess at identifying your firewood, but I'm just saying welcome. I like your name. My wife and I lived east of Gainesboro for about one year. Chvymn99 is right about that area being kinda like heaven. One of our favorite things to do on weekends was to go find waterfalls. I was a skidder operator most of the time that we lived there, so you'd think I could help ID your wood. It is embarrassing.

 

I'm not to far away from you, but I'm not very good at ID. If it's stringy to split and all white wood, we have lots of those here.... good firewood, dries fast and coals up a little.

 

Welcome Moparguy ! Sorry, I cant help with the ID.

 

Thanks guys. It's definitely a hardwood, the "pines" growing around me are these cedars that seem to like sprouting up anywhere you've disturbed the land if that makes any sense. I'm also not sure why I posted the same pictures a bunch of times...

I know exactly where Gainesboro is...that used to be the only place you could buy liquor..

Almost forgot, I haven't had a chance to split it yet, but I use a hydraulic splitter. Even then I'm well aware of what stringy is...it just seems to want to "tear" stuff like sweet gum.

 

Welcome to the forum Moparguy. I've had ash in my area with bark like that.

 

I've seen ash with bark like that also. Does it have a bb sized hole in the center of the rounds and limb wood?

 

looks kind of like red hickory.

 

Cottonwood, perhaps?

 

Man, I don't know. At first I thought black gum or persimmon with some of that blocky looking bark, but the ones I have seen are all blocky bark, not like yours. Still, those blocks on the bottom of the rounds are unique to Black gum and Persimmon.

I don't have a clue. Weird seeing those little blocks though. If it's sasafrass you will know it when you split it, but I'm thinking it's not. Hopefully you find out, we would like to know.

 

Welcome to the forum Moparguy! You'll like it here.

 

A zoom-in look at the pic of the round top reveals a bb sized hole in the center of the rings. Based on that, I say ash!
:stacke:

 

and welcome, Moparguy! This is a great place, glad you found it!

 

Cottonwood.

 

Black cherry

 

Thanks again guys. I went back today after work to see if I could find the upper branches...they were alternate branching so not ash. But...I took a little walk downhill and I found a cluster of trees that look very similar just smaller in diameter. I also took a picture of the remaining (may trim another piece or 2 off) stump which is about 12"-14" wide at the cut.

Also, found definitive proof of bigfoot. Obviously one died and left his femur laying on my hill and the coyotes drug off the rest.