Wood ID help needed

[Forrest Price]

Hi folks. Can someone help out here with wood ID? I'm drawing a blank. wood came off a tree in southern Idaho. Owner thinks it's ....ahem....Mahogany....I don't recall any Mahogany trees this far north!
http://www.woodworking.org/photo/albums/userpics/14171/panasonic_189_%28Large%29.jpg
See "bark" (http://www.woodworking.org/photo/displayimage.php?pos=-10042)
http://www.woodworking.org/photo/albums/userpics/14171/panasonic_188_%28Large%29.jpg
See "bark" (http://www.woodworking.org/photo/displayimage.php?pos=-10041)

Sorry, no leaf pics.

[Charles Wiggins]

Looks an awful lot like some cherry firewood that I took in a couple of years ago, but I'm not that good at identifying logs.

[Bob Oehler]

Looks like Cherry to me also.

[Todd Burch]

I'd guess cherry or hickory.

Todd

[Forrest Price]

Well, the bark is missing the telltale "eyes" of cherry bark. Most hickory I've seen has more of a fissured type bark, not this scaly type. Pretty dense piece even if it is green. This 3"x12" piece weighs in at 4lbs.

Only other clue was this was the straightest piece he could get. apparently, a very twisty tree.

[Don Orr]

Looks like apple to me.

[Forrest Price]

Leaning towards chinese elm due to the bark.
thoughts?

[Todd Burch]

Chinese elm around here has lots of orange colored smooth areas.

After referencing my tree guide, I would lean towards apple myself. Possibly crab apple too.

I was originally thinking a shagbark hickory, but I don't think that's it. Shagbark has longer loose flaky pieces, where these are smaller and more circular than elongated.

Todd

[Charles Wiggins]

Chinese elm around here has lots of orange colored smooth areas.

After referencing my tree guide, I would lean towards apple myself. Possibly crab apple too.

I was originally thinking a shagbark hickory, but I don't think that's it. Shagbark has longer loose flaky pieces, where these are smaller and more circular than elongated.

Todd

I climbed a lot of crabapple trees growing up and I don't remember the bark being that flaky.

[Jim Becker]

Fruitwood of some kind...and our crabapple is very similar in color and "flakiness" as Charles calls it! LOL

[Dennis Jackson]

What you have may be Curly Leaf Mountain Mahogany, check this out:

http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=434

Not really a mahogany, but real dense. The bark looks like the picture. I have a chunk of this that is about the same size and sinks and the bark is about 1/2 inch thick, very craggy and with lichen growing on it.

[Dave Dionne]

Looks allot like what we call wild apple here in NH, old growth apples gone to seed

I vote apple variety

[Jon Lanier]

Need a leaf.... if you got a leaf it'll be easy to get.

[Forrest Price]

What you have may be Curly Leaf Mountain Mahogany, check this out:

http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=434

Not really a mahogany, but real dense. The bark looks like the picture. I have a chunk of this that is about the same size and sinks and the bark is about 1/2 inch thick, very craggy and with lichen growing on it.

Wow, I think you nailed it. Sure would fit in with them thinking it was mahogany too, as well as the way it grows all twisted and such.

I may just have learned something today!

[Dick Strauss]

Forrest,
It looks like it might be crab apple or apple as others have said. If the wood is pretty soft (in its wet state), I'd say regular apple. If the wood is pretty hard, I'd say crab apple.