I cut down this tree back in February in a Spruce and Hemlock swamp. Everything in there is moss covered and wet, the kind of place that you can't go into in the summer. This wood is very heavy and was like cutting an I-beam. In fact I would rather cut the I-beam.
Ironwood is hophornbeam, musclewood is American hornbeam. Both in the betulaceae (birch) family. Ironwood has that shaggy bark with vertical lines, and musclewood has that smooth gray bark like beech. Some people call musclewood blue beech.
I used to call it ironwood until all the confusion here between it and Hophornbeam. The Hornbeam is more common here than Hophornbeam.
Same here , I knew it was some kind of Iron wood, but this looked different. Thanks for the help ya'll.
I got one right, that was my initial thought but Louisiana is a fer piece from New Hampshire! I only remember seeing one example of musclewood. It was a FBM scrounge I came across from a tornado blowdown tract. I came across several of these and the landowner wanted them all gone. The whole place was a mess, if it wasn't blowdowns, it was the adjacent trees being bent over. That scrounge left a bad memory, lol. I had worked an area of the tract and was going daily to get it out and she let some yahoo in there to get the trees I had cleared out and had even bucked one. She acted like she had done me this humongous favor and "who are you to complain" and I said, "Lady, you have got to be kidding. For me to dig through that bomb zone and get out what I can, you should be paying me. It would cost a small fortune to clean up this tract. And you know good and well I was working those trees, I see you every day!" Left her with her mouth open. I wasn't rude, just matter-of-factual. IMO! I was not happy, lol, it was hard work and I did do her a good job.
