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Yet another wood ID.
- Thread starter Russell Nugent
- Start date
Aspen?
Looks like Bird peck Cherry to me, though at first glans I thought Aspen as well, and yes Cherry trees do grow in Alberta, as I checked for that.
The color of the wood is not like Aspen or poplar type trees.
We do have Cherry grow here in the bush in NW Ontario, you will see the white flowers in early spring with the leaves still small and reddish.
The color of the wood is not like Aspen or poplar type trees.
We do have Cherry grow here in the bush in NW Ontario, you will see the white flowers in early spring with the leaves still small and reddish.
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Got any leaf and limb pictures?
Unfortunately no limbs or leaf pics. I just found that one section I pictured. I'm going to turn one section tonight. It had a pleasant smell when I cut the ends checking off. I though maybe cherry but didn't want to sound too crazy. Thanks for the ideas.
Aspen can have nice medium reddish-brown color emanating from the heartwood, so that's still a possibility. If it's aspen, it's a really old tree and you've got the base, with that solidly gray, barky bark. Aspen has a pleasant smell, but it's not usually too remarkably so.
If it smells really nice, then you've probably got a fruit wood of some sort. Did this come from right around where you live? If so, that would eliminate most types of fruit trees. There's a type of cherry that is a 'chokecherry' tree, sometimes called Canada Red Cherry here in the States, which would have bark like any other cherry.
If it smells really nice, then you've probably got a fruit wood of some sort. Did this come from right around where you live? If so, that would eliminate most types of fruit trees. There's a type of cherry that is a 'chokecherry' tree, sometimes called Canada Red Cherry here in the States, which would have bark like any other cherry.
Yeah, it was in the burn pile. Around here we have lots of trembling Aspen( or quaking aspen, or popalar)but I've never seen one this solid, this one is very heavy and usually the rot from the center. Maybe some sort of ornamental Aspen. I've attached a picture of the in progress bowl for a look.
Whatever it is, it's pretty wood.
Attachments
Chokecherry.
Definitely need to keep my eye out for more of this stuff. Thanks for the help!
Possibly birch that had been pecked at by woodpeckers
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Gotta agree with Dean, looks like some sort of fruitwood to me - your original photos of the whole log, looks a lot like some apple wood I have had , similar grain patterns and multiple little dark "spots" within the clear whiter grain. I don't think I've had chokecherry , but got tons of cherry and ash, still have a couple logs of apple.. The regular cherry wood I am used to, often gives off a somewhat "fruity" smell... if that's what you mean by the nice smell of it. Birch wood (as in white birch) typically seems to give a pine-ish scent (think hint of Pine-Sol) , just my 2 cents worth (which ain't worth much these days)
I have turned several types of cherry, but not choke cherry. All of them have smelled like cherries when I turned them. Birds do seem to prefer some trees to drill small holes in to, all around the trunk. Guess they are trying to plant bugs...
robo hippy
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The holes attract bugs.
Yellow bellied sapsuckers ( a sort of woodpecker) - winter bird for us is one that will cover the tree trunks with pecked sap wells.
They eat the sap and bugs attracted to the sap.
Hummingbirds will feed on the sap too.
I have a 1980 Audubon Field Guide to North American Trees, which has color plates of the bark & leaves, the flowers and a range map with detailed description.
I have identified black cheery, pin cheery and choke cheery on my property and none of them has white bark . The range on choke cheery and pin cheery looks like it may reach Alberta. The stated diameter for CC is 6" and 12" for PC but the trees on my property start dyeing out at about 5" dimeter max.
I have had birch trees that were bird pecked before they died and had a similar look on the bark. The birch tree can be taped for sap just like maple so it obviously contains sugar to attract the birds.
I have identified black cheery, pin cheery and choke cheery on my property and none of them has white bark . The range on choke cheery and pin cheery looks like it may reach Alberta. The stated diameter for CC is 6" and 12" for PC but the trees on my property start dyeing out at about 5" dimeter max.
I have had birch trees that were bird pecked before they died and had a similar look on the bark. The birch tree can be taped for sap just like maple so it obviously contains sugar to attract the birds.
I’d vote for the aspen. The brown color looks like the heart rot that often infects them in Northern Wis and it often erupts through the bark making it bumpy like that. We’re the any conchs on other parts of the log? Aspen also has a wintergreen- like smell when cutting. Definitely distinct from cherry but if it was sitting around for a while it might be less intense. I find the texture of aspen to be a bit more stringy than cherry when turning, but again the difference depends on greeness.
The brown color is typical for birch heart and will spread to the bark when a portion of the bark dies.
Don I have Pin Cherry and Choke Cherry on my property here, and like yours the Choke Cherry dies of before it gets thicker, and the Pin Cherry are just shrub size, they all grow very slow here as the soil is shallow and poor really.
Also most of these are in the bush or on the edge, where they will grow better in open and full sun situations and rich soil.
I was again looking at the turning the OP made and there are those dark brown spots you often find in Cherry, also the inner bark is much thicker than I find in Birch and I don't see the paper like outer Birch bark, you can have a look here again, anyway I still lean to it being Cherry, though it is not impossible that it is Birch, but I doubt it.
https://www.urbanforestnursery.com/treeprofiles/profilecanadaredchokecherry.html
https://trees.umn.edu/nursery-tour/species/caresech
This is the "Canada Red Cherry" which we have in our town as an ornamental tree. A large one would have a trunk diameter of about 12". Generally, it has the bark appearance typical of cherry trees. The wood is exactly as shown turned above. Swirls of white and reddish brown with sap channels, just like true cherries. Alberta is after all our neighbor to the north, so not a surprise that some might be found there.
I've turned a lot of aspen, and parts of probably 3 different canada red cherry trees. I looked but could not find any in my inventory, but I have turned bowls that looked exactly like the OP. I'm pretty confident this is chokecherry.
https://trees.umn.edu/nursery-tour/species/caresech
This is the "Canada Red Cherry" which we have in our town as an ornamental tree. A large one would have a trunk diameter of about 12". Generally, it has the bark appearance typical of cherry trees. The wood is exactly as shown turned above. Swirls of white and reddish brown with sap channels, just like true cherries. Alberta is after all our neighbor to the north, so not a surprise that some might be found there.
I've turned a lot of aspen, and parts of probably 3 different canada red cherry trees. I looked but could not find any in my inventory, but I have turned bowls that looked exactly like the OP. I'm pretty confident this is chokecherry.
Thanks for all the input. Found this link to a bc government site. The one picture looks identical to the wood I have. Appears to be chokecherry.
The typical spots found in cheery would look more like this, where as the spots on the sample look like grown over bird pecks.
Note that the division between heart wood and sap wood mostly follows the annual rings, where as with birch the dark is more random and has a different shade similar to this burl bowl and can be almost non existent as in this natural edge bowl.
Lastly in my personal experience birch has much thicker bark then any cheery that I have ever worked with.
The final question is how do you explain the white bark?
Don I still think it is Cherry wood, to me that bark in the OP's pictures has a shine, and is not white like in Birch.
As for bark thickness here are two pictures of both Cherry alongside Apricot and Birch Napkin rings, the Cherry has thick bark as shown, and the Birch is pretty thin, both of these ar cut at right angles and so I'll leave it at that,
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Outer and inner bark is thinner than the tooth pick.
As for bark thickness here are two pictures of both Cherry alongside Apricot and Birch Napkin rings, the Cherry has thick bark as shown, and the Birch is pretty thin, both of these ar cut at right angles and so I'll leave it at that,
.Outer and inner bark is thinner than the tooth pick.
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The two samples are labeled cheery and apricot?Don I still think it is Cherry wood, to me that bark in the OP's pictures has a shine, and is not white like in Birch.
As for bark thickness here are two pictures of both Cherry and Birch, the Cherry has thick bark as shown, and the Birch is pretty thin, both of these ar cut at right angles and so I'll leave it at that,
View attachment 44107
Outer and inner bark is thinner than the tooth pick.
View attachment 44108
The smaller of these two cut offs is either black or choke cheery freshly cut off the standing stump. The cut off on the right and the length sitting across the drawer are from a nearly dead tree that I cut last fall just before snow fall. The thickness of the bark is definitely thicker on the birch plus difference between the inner and outer bark is evident.
Tom Gall
TOTW Team
Don, I can understand an occasional typo ... or even a missed/uncorrected 'spell check'. But, you have consistently used "cheery" in this thread ... are you playing with us? Checked all my wood ID books and can't find any "cheery trees"!
Yup I got the wrong double letter, but I must have been trying to cheer you upDon, I can understand an occasional typo ... or even a missed/uncorrected 'spell check'. But, you have consistently used "cheery" in this thread ... are you playing with us? Checked all my wood ID books and can't find any "cheery trees"!
Don, I agree that the bark doesn't look quite right in my experience. But then, it looks a lot like the cherry/cheery wood you showed. Here in our area, we don't get the really old, gnarly cherry trees as landscaping trees. I guess they do up in NW Montana where Flathead Cherries come from. In any case, I was basing my ID on the wood as cut and turned having a characteristic appearance.