Help me out here guys. Here are a couple logs I am at a loss to identify. No leaves are available although I could post a couple of fresh cut grain pics. This is from a clear cut that I have been scrounging since late summer. A lot of it was tulip, poplar, and soft maple but there was some oak, ash, and beech as well.
The first I have no idea. Maybe some kind of cherry? Whatever it is, it is heavy. Heavier than an oak or beech log of similar size. The leaves are not likely from this tree.
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Here is the second. It is heavy also. As a matter of fact it was almost headed for the slash pile but I noticed how heavy it was. I have run into this a time or two before but never successfully identified it.
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The top ones could be either one of the many hawthornes or crabapples, as you mentioned the wood was quite heavy. Hawthorne and crabapple wood is very dense, heavy, and strong, but the trees are small, and the trunks seldom grow more than a few feet tall without branching, and rarely more than a foot in diameter. The bark looks very thorn or crab apple like. The wood is reddish-brown with growth rings indicating slow growth.
Sycamore bark looks like the top picture also, and if the logs are longer, straight, and large, Sycamore is a good bet. When it dries out though, it's not nearly as heavy as the thornapples. The growth rings are also much larger.
The wood in the bottom picture is absolutely Ironwood (ostrya virginiana). It's also called hop hornbeam. The tree is very slow growing and the air dried wood weighs the same as white oak & hickory (50 pounds per cubic foot). It is one of the best firewoods available. The wood is very hard and tough and you'll see sparks flying from the chain when you cut it (dirt in bark).
You also mentioned what some people in your area refer to as ironwood. You've described what's also known as blue beech, muscle-wood, or american hornbeam (carpinus caroliniana). They are small trees with tight blueish-gray ridged or rippled bark resembling my abdominal muscles ; ) The wood is very heavy, hard, and strong, and I've seen many walking sticks made from blue beech because of the unusual contortions the tree branches grow into and the ribbed wood. It's an excellent firewood if you find trees big enough to bother cutting.
Hope this info helps, the more you know about trees, the less junk wood you end up cutting. Dry wood all has the same btu's per ton. Some tons just take up a lot more space.