# What is this wood?



## dbhost (Jan 28, 2008)

I know pics will help. I don't have access to my digital camera right now... Will try to post pics tonight...

I grabbed a couple of interesting looking tree crotches at lunch today in one of the storm blowdown piles around my office... The wood is dark, reddish brown, the leaves which I forgot to grab a sample of, a simple leaves unlobed, with a smooth margin. They are about 2" long, and 3/4" wide.

The wood itself is dark reddish brown, darker toward the center, and the bark is smooth, gray, and reddish brown, almost the wood color spotted with little dark gray / black spots. 

The closest I could find in the id guides is Black Cherry, but the bark is completely wrong... It COULD be some sort of cherry as there were clusters of now dried up little fruit on a few of the branches...


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## jeffreythree (Jan 9, 2008)

I am pretty sure you have Red Bay. If you have a leaf, crush it to see if it smells like the spice bay leaves. It is a dense, hard wood that it is supposed to be dificult to season. It used to be considered superior to walnut and true mahogany for furniture use, but the limited supply caused it to frop out of favor. I have my family down in the Kingwood area looking for some logs so I can pick them up over the holidays. It sounds like a cool and unusual wood.http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=PEBO
http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=PEBO


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## dbhost (Jan 28, 2008)

Yeah, kind of. But the bark doesn't look anything like the few pics I can find. The bark on this stuff is smooth. Very smooth...


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## red (Sep 30, 2008)

dbhost said:


> Yeah, kind of. But the bark doesn't look anything like the few pics I can find. The bark on this stuff is smooth. Very smooth...


 
Post a pic when you can. I'm sure someone here will be able to help ID it. Red


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## dbhost (Jan 28, 2008)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_sycamore#Distribution

Okay, THIS tree looks like the bark on the wood I found. American Sycamore...

Am I wasting my time trying to salvage this stuff?


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## dirtclod (May 7, 2008)

The other clues you gave tells me it's not sycamore. Sycamore has large leaves. And it has a nearly white sapwood. It's heartwood, when freshly sawn from a fresly felled tree, tends to be a pinkish color.

Do you still have some leaves you can post a picture of? If not, then were the leaves lance-shaped? You've got me on the smooth bark and smooth leaf edges. If the edges had small teeth and were ovate or nearly lance-shaped then I would say it was hornbeam.


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## dbhost (Jan 28, 2008)

I'll see if I can swing by the building and grab a branch or something. It was from cut up storm blowdown at an office building not far from where I work...


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## jeffreythree (Jan 9, 2008)

I bet it is a Texas Madrone that was planted as an ornamental, and I will not stop guessing until a pic shows up.


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