Wood ID please

[Jess Wetherhold]

A new turning buddy dropped by the other day and with some green wood.
He just sent me these pics and by the leaves I am thinking this to be locust.
I am in the SAN DIEGO area...dunno if that makes a difference.
Also, I don't know the difference between black and honey locust (assuming this is one of them.)
The sap looks like raspberry jelly and is everywhere :eek:
Any help is appreciated & thanks.
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[Mike Vickery]

Well this is a little wierd. The leaves look right on for Honey Locust. I only got green Honey Locust once before and their was no Rasberry jam sap coming out of it. Plus the seeds you show look like helicopter seeds. Honey Locust has been pod type seeds.
http://www.distinctiveturnings.com/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Honey+Locust+-+Gleditsia+triacanthos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_locust

I have no idea what it is though.

[Mike Armstrong]

Hey, I'm out your way. The leaves and branch look like some kind of Pepper tree. There's a ton of these all over Southern Calif. I took a Brazilian Pepper out of my front yard a while back. Don't recall the red sap, tho. Are the leaves real aromatic?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_pepper


Mike

[Donald Price]

Hi Jess,

I’m a fellow San Diegan, out in the Lakeside area. I’m not sure about Locust trees but I do have a mature Californian Pepper Tree that I have turned from. The leaf structure is the same as is the wood in the photo. It’s a pleasure to turn and gives off a real nice smell. Make sure you clean up your tools after use as its prone causing corrosion.

[Nathan Hawkes]

I don't know anything about CA pepper trees, but that's no locust. I've been burning locust in the woodstove forever, and have a fair number of honey locust slabs drying; it has similar leaves, but as someone already stated, they have seed pods instead of helicopters. Also, with both black and honey locusts, thorns are present on the branches. Honey locusts generally have longer thorns than black locusts but they're both prominent. HTH.

[Jess Wetherhold]

Ok, so along with the wood in question also came some pepper wood.
The pepper wood was very dry and from my experience with it was not worth turning (very stringy and cracks very badly.)
So.....I guess I will have to get back to my buddy about the leaves and pods in question. From the responses it could be either tree but the wood does not resemble pepper at all :confused:

[Anchor Sarslow]

Someone playing a joke here?

The leaf could be either California Pepper or a honey locust.

The seed is decidedly maple with a possibility of ash as I am not familiar with all of thier seeds.

the log is not pepper tree as the pepper tree has a clear sap not red. I am not familiar with this sap condition on local trees though the bark does look familiar for some reason.. Might be a form of maple. In either case the leaf does not go with the the log or the seed.

It looks like parts of 3 different trees. something is not right at all.

Anchor

[Reed Gray]

Tree of Heaven maybe. Leaves look right, and propellers. Should smell rather bitter. Don't know about the red sap though. Wood is the right color, and when turned is almost translucent, with open pores.
robo hippy

[Bob Hamilton]

Are you sure that is sap and not chain saw oil? The chain oil I used to use was red in color and would get all over everything if I was a bit too aggressive with the oiler pump.

Bob

[Jess Wetherhold]

Ok, this is not a pepper tree. I have pepper and yes, it is red and has big bark. The grain does resemble ash but it seems much denser.
When he sent me the pics of the seed pods I thought it was maple but having seen this wood start to yellow and with he red sap, I do not know.
I am from the East coast so being out in San Diego is a challenge. We have some funky looking stuff out here.
So maybe the leaves were from another tree and he was a little mixed up? Here are some more pics of just the log. And to answer a question...the red stuff is sap (not oil) and ruined my BS blade, my tshirt and my gloves. This stuff was no joke and would ooze everywhere once it was cut.
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[David Epperson]

Bleedwood? :D

[Jess Wetherhold]

lol, bleedwood is real.
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/plants_and_algae/Pterocarpus_angolensis/

[Kent Williams]

I'z be thinkin your maple and locust trees have been hangin out a lil too closely. Maybe ya gotta mongrel there. :D

[David Epperson]

lol, bleedwood is real.

Bleedingwood? :D
Bloody turning wood? :D

[Tim A. Mitchell]

In searching on the red sap, I came accross a Dragons blood tree. did he have anything that looked like the one in the link? The leaves would definately be wrong though, and I cannot imagine he got confused.
http://www.worldplants.com/dracaena.htm

[Jess Wetherhold]

It has been confirmed that he pulled the leaves and pods off a branch in the pile.
Also, the pods are singular, not helicopter.
One thing to keep in mind is that there are tons of exotic south American trees growing here.
There is also a ton of eucalyptus (I believe there are over 160 varieties.)

[Nathan Hawkes]

Tree of Heaven maybe. Leaves look right, and propellers. Should smell rather bitter. Don't know about the red sap though. Wood is the right color, and when turned is almost translucent, with open pores.
robo hippy


It's not Ailanthus, which is what people call "tree of heaven" around here. Virginia has an abundance of it, unfortunately. It definitely has a weird, kind of acrid odor to it as well. The bark is a little different, though, and I definitely haven't seen any with red sap. The leaves of ailanthus most resemble black walnut or butternut; elongated not round. Weird. Acacia??

[Kevin Moran]

http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/flora-kiuic/a/apoplanesia_paniculata.html

^Reminds me of an alternating leaf dogwood.

[Mike Vickery]

It has been confirmed that he pulled the leaves and pods off a branch in the pile.
Also, the pods are singular, not helicopter.
One thing to keep in mind is that there are tons of exotic south American trees growing here.
There is also a ton of eucalyptus (I believe there are over 160 varieties.)
Jess,
Us turners down in the desert are in the same boat. Most of the trees here are not native and stuff like eucalyptus and Acacia have a lot of varieties which can make an id very hard.
I have had acaica the bled sap like that before but I could never exactly id it and it was definately not the same as what you are showing. I know Eucalyptus will also bleed sap but this does not look like any Eucalyptus I know of ( not that I know a lot).

My best advise to you is to e-mail the pictures to a couple local arborists or a local universities botany department to see if they recognize it. I have done this a couple times in the past. E-mail it to a few and hopefully one will respond. In areas like ours with so many non native species I have my doubts how familiar local arborists are with all of the trees. Around here it seems if they do not know they say "Some kind of Acacia"

[Jess Wetherhold]

Just got these. Looks like green ash or acacia.
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[Kevin Moran]

http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/flora-kiuic/a/apoplanesia_paniculata_canopy_01s.JPG

Another Apoplanesia Paniculata picture. Says it's common in Yucatan, Mexico.

[Jess Wetherhold]

Tipuana tipu

Was a suggestion. The tree matches the leaves and pods to a T.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in on this. It has been fun!

[Anchor Sarslow]

I am going to go out on a limb here.. heheh pun intended..

I am going to say the bark looks Cherry like.. could this be a cherry maybe?

I have seen some cherry trees do stuff like this before but not to the degree of the photos..

This would of course mean that both the leaves and seeds are out of order.