Can anyone identify this wood?

[Kenneth Whiting 79]

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I was given some wood that my brother in law was paid to get rid of. This is about 8 inches across and about 4 1/2 inches deep. In these photos it had 2 coats of salad bowl finish on it.

[Cody Armstrong]

My first guess would be holly.

[Kenneth Whiting 79]

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here is the other half of the log.

[Bill Hensley]

The wood color and bark look similar to Beech. But that is only a guess.

[Kenneth Whiting 79]

I let it sit overnight and put a third cost of salad bowl finish on it. I just turned it around to do the bottom. The color really changed a lot....
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[Jeffrey J Smith]

looks like sycamore to me - with some interesting spalting going on...

[Scott Vincent]

Looks like "gorgeous" wood to me. Wish I had some growing nearby. Sorry can't really help. Very nice though.

[bob svoboda]

Looks a lot like a hunk of Holly I have stored away

[Kenneth Whiting 79]

Is the darkening normal?

[robert baccus]

The presence of growth rings rules out holly--another wild guess would be hickory or pecan. Does it smell very bad?

[Kenneth Whiting 79]

It has a very diluted odor. It actually smells watered down.

[Don Orr]

Looks a lot like one of the Elms to me. If you look dead center of the photo you can see some ziggy-zaggy (a highly technical term in wood identification) lines in the grain that are characteristic of the interlocked grain of Elm.

[Jim Sevey]

I have some spalted olive that looks like that. In my opinion- when you turn it- the fresh cut wood smells kind of like black olives. My wife thinks I'm crazy but my nose is better than hers.

[Bruce Pratt]

Bradford pear?

[Gary Sichmeller]

Looks like hickory to me.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

I had an inkling before, but the bark picture strew me off, but that last picture did show much better that it was indeed Elm, so that's when I realized it was Chinese Elm, not the misnamed Siberian Elm that often is wrongly called Chinese Elm.

I have one picture of Chinese Elm, it looks quite different from the look of the native Elm bark that we are familiar with, much smoother and more flakey.

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[Dale Miner]

Looks like hackberry to me. Hackberry often times has the interlocked grain like an elm, and depending on where and how fast it grows can have a trunk that is relatively free of the little cork like protrusions. Hackberry wood is very white when first cut and does get the dark stain.

[Mike Peace]

The dark color looks exactly like what we commonly get around here in maple trees. It looks like the coloration caused by the ambrosia beetle. It does not look at all like Bradford Pear to me.

[Steve Mellott]

If it has little holes in it (beetles), it is probably ambrosia maple.

[Dave Bunge]

I'll hop on the ambrosia maple bandwagon. Here's picture of a maple bowl I made a few years back when I was just getting started. I know it's maple because I raked the leaves for a lot of years before the tree died.
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[Leo Van Der Loo]

It is certainly NOT Maple bark that the OP is showing, as for hackberry, yes it is in the Elm family and has the interlocked grain, however I have never seen it without any ridges or wards on it.

Lots of trees have dark heart stains, I have cut up logs that had real dark heart stains as for Ambrosia staining it is fungus growth around the beetle tunnels, so basically a small round area, only if there are many the stain can overlap, but the tunnel openings would be quite visible IMO.

Anyway I bet on Chinese Elm with a very remote second on Hackberry, though I do not believe that, Hackberry has a delicate thin bark that relies on ridges and warts for protection against animal damage by rubbing agains it.

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[robert baccus]

Does the bark have any small warts? on it. Maybe Hackberry?

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Does the bark have any small warts? on it. Maybe Hackberry?

Bob the third picture above is the bark from the OP, it shows a very smooth thin blotted bark, not a hint of any warts.

[Joe Kieve]

Just a WAG but....ambrosia maple?

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Just a WAG but....ambrosia maple?

You ever seen a tree called Ambrosia Maple ???

I'll help you, any Maple or even some other type of trees like Sycamore that are attacked by the Ambrosia Beetles that carry a fungus in/on their bodies that cause the wood around the beetles tunnel to discolor/stain are called Ambrosia Maple.

So there is no Ambrosia Maple as such, any Maple and trees with stains in the wood caused by the Ambrosia beetles ( there are a few different types of Ambrosia beetles)

Most often it is soft Maple like Silver Maple or Red Maple that are attacked, but also Sugar Maple and other types, none of these Maples have bark that is like the bark the OP showed in his picture, HTH :D

Oh and none of these have the cross linked grain as was shown in the other picture.

[Brian Effinger]

I let it sit overnight and put a third cost of salad bowl finish on it. I just turned it around to do the bottom. The color really changed a lot....
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Definitely elm. Can tell by the grain on the bottom of the bowl. Not sure about the bark, so I'd bet that Leo is right about the exact flavor.

[Joe Kieve]

Searched Google for "ambrosia maple" and only got 869,000 results.