Wood ID requested

[Randy Hoch]

Here's a few photos of some wood I'd like to ID. I have a bunch of wood from the storage shed of a woodworker recently deceased. There are many species and I am at a loss. I thought that these were local (Montana) woods, but as it turns out he traveled and liked to bring back wood (Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, even East Coast) so now I'm really in a pickle. Nothing is labeled. I appreciate any help at all. BTW, it's all well seasoned. These three photos are of just one piece.

Randy

[Brian Effinger]

It looks like it might be oak. Are there rays in the grain, radiating out from the pith?

[Steve Vaughan]

not sure about oak with that bark...but sure is nice looking stuff whatever it ends up being.

[Brian Brown]

The medulary rays suggest oak but he barks says no way! So the answer to your question is He** if I know! :D

[John Keeton]

The bark looks like beech, but pics of a planed surface of face grain may help with ID.

[Eric Kosanovich]

looks like Tulip/Poplar Yellow-Poplar to me.
is the wood really soft if so then thats what it is

[Roger Bullock]

Shape and direction of growth rings makes me think it is cut from a limb, possibly oak of some kind. Does it have a distinctive smell? Take a small hand plane, shave off a small section, wipe it with a damp rag, take another photo and post again. This might help some of here to make a better WAG (wild a.. guess). :rolleyes:

[John Shuk]

By the bark it looks like birch but the wood is a bit dark but it might be.
Just turn it.

[John Shuk]

On second look it doesn't really look like birch. It looks like sumac(not the poison sort). Is it really light for it's size? Sumac has this sort of styrofoamlike pith also.

[Matt Hutchinson]

It kinda reminds me of Pin Oak, but it's pretty hard to tell.

Hutch

[Randy Hoch]

john,
did you mean the cambium or the pith?.....Cambium really does look like styrofoam and is more dark orange than the photo shows. The pith is quite uniformly hard like the rest of the heartwood.

eric ,
the wood is not at all soft...

roger,
no distinctive smell at all.

brian,
there are medullary rays but very subtle, not prominent at all.

There are little wart-like bumps on the surface which are the same orange-red color as the cambium under the bark.

Thanks for all the input!

[Eric Kosanovich]

if it's dry it may not be soft.
is it light or heavy?
i'm still swingin to the yellow-popler.
Popler will be light, hard woods will be heavier.
yellowish wart-like bumps?

[Donny Lawson]

Ash or Birch

[Mike Currier]

Coming from coastal Maine where oak is our main species, I can say it is not Oak, whether it be branch or trunk.

Gonna have to go along with Eric and Donny and say Poplar (branch) or Ash.

[Nathan Hawkes]

Well, I'm going to go completely away from all other guesses so far and say that it looks very similar to the bark of small young honey locust trees, and the color matches as well. I'm not totally up on your local woods, but I think there are a couple of western species of locust that we dont have on the east coast. Its hard, but nothing like black locust, in my limited experience. Lovely grain when cut long-grain as lumber, too!
Edit: not it really looks like honey locust to me. In the first pic, the little indentations really remind me of the craters left from picking or knocking the (very sharp and long) thorns off. But, the color also reminds me a bit of the few pics I've seen of your "olive" trees, which I cant remember the proper name of--not really an olive. I've never seen it in log form.

[David Hullum]

The bark looks like ash and the heartwood. That is what ash trees look like here in Texas.

[Quinn McCarthy]

Red maple sometimes called soft maple.

you can tell by the bark it isn't ash or birch. All of the species of birch have a pepery bark and the lack of ridges on the bark rule out ash. Montana is too far west for polplar.

If there are any branches. The maples are opposite leafing. That means the buds are opposite each other when you look at the branch.

Hope that helps.

Quinn

Forester by day woodworker by night

[Ken Glass]

I agree with Davis, I believe it to be a variety of Ash.

[Fred Perreault]

From the bark and the colored spots, it looks like some of our eastern poplar. But Honey locust has similar spots around here. If the wood is tight and hard, I would say locust, if soft and spongy-like, then a poplar of some sort.
Fred

[Randy Hoch]

Thanks for all the input. I've got some possible ideas for sure. I'll have to wait two wks to continue the investigation as I'll be on vacation. I was going to see if it fluoresced under the black lite I have at the office today....but I forgot to take it. (Apparently sumac fluoresces.)

Randy

[Jim Sebring]

With those wide growth rings it was a pretty fast growing tree. The bark rules out big leaf (soft) maple that grows around here in the northwest. It looks a little like the red alder that grows around here. Red alder gets its name from the cambium layer color.