ID this wood

[s219]

I came across two pieces of wood today that I kept and cut up, but can't quite peg them with my field guide.

The first one is definitely a hardwood, and seems like an oak to me. Maybe white oak, but the bark is throwing me off -- it seems flakier than I remember. It's got large flakes that overlap going around the tree:

This second one is a bit odd. It's extremely wet and stringy, and was a challenge to split even with my Fiskars X27. When split, the wood has a pleasant, fruity, melon-like smell:

Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[thepheniox]

The one is shagbark hickory. Not sure about the other.

 

[ks_osage_orange]

Not sure on #1, the wood itself (not the bark) does look like oak, very tight growth rings looks dense but ???
#2 looks like Cottonwood to me. (although I never thought of cottonwood as having a melon like smell.)

 

[ks_osage_orange]

The one is shagbark hickory. Not sure about the other.

I initially thought that also, but the hickories bark usually peel vertically. Bark is not a very good indicator of species.

 

[PA Plumber]

The first does look like White Oak to me. Our Shagbark Hickory tends to have a dark center.

The second pic: Have no idea at all: Quaking Aspen?

 

[lone wolf]

White oak or
white oak family top pic ,
Bottom pic is Gumwood

 

[ks_osage_orange]

The first does look like White Oak to me. Our Shagbark Hickory tends to have a dark center.

The second pic: Have no idea at all: Quaking Aspen?

Cottonwood and Aspen are both Populus species

 

[PA Plumber]

I wondered about Black Gum for the 2nd pic, but our Gum bark tends to be more "blocky", or "Square." Especially at the main trunk of the tree.

 

[Chris-PA]

The first one looks like black locust to me - it has bark like that when it gets old, and the wood looks right too. Don't know about the second.

 

[backdoor]

I think the first picture is white oak, and the second picture is sweet gum.

 

[AIM]

1st pic... I've seen some sugar maple bark that looks like that but I'm not willing to say that is what it is.

 

[StephieDoll]

I think the first one is honeylocust, at least to me.

No idea on the second.

 

[bsearcey]

#1 Maple

#2 Black gum

 

[pdqdl]

The one is shagbark hickory. Not sure about the other.

Definitely NOT a shagbark hickory. The flakes are much looser and more profuse, generally loose and falling off.

They are the preferred natural habitat for the one of the endangered brown bats in Missouri, which sleeps underneath the bark.

Good pics here:
http://www.batmanagement.com/Ordering/roosttrees/roosttrees.html

 

[atlarge54]

#1 Kentucky coffee? Were there any bean pods near the tree?

#2 Not even guessing but it looks like a lot of soft maple that I'm used to cutting.

 

[s219]

Thanks for the input so far. The comments about #2 maybe being a gum got me thinking, since I cleaned up a gum about 6 weeks ago, and grabbed a pic:

The bark looks like a match. I do remember noodling one round back then, and the chips were wet, soapy, and floppy, much like the wet grain I see when splitting mystery wood #2 with my axe. So #2 does seem to be a gum tree. And that makes sense, as I have heard gums are notoriously tough to split. The grain is twisted and wrapped all around. The only thing I can't correlate is the smell, as I wasn't paying attention to that 6 weeks ago. But I may be able to track down a piece of that previous wood tomorrow for a more direct comparison.

So for #1, we have inputs of shagbark hickory, oak, maple, and locust. Having seen shagbark hickory recently, I don't think that's it, as the flakes on that are more vertically biased and appear to have been torn off in vertical strips. This bark is more of a "fan" flake overlapping around horizontally.

I haven't seen a locust of either type that's this big, so I can't add comments there.

Chinkapin Oak (aka Chesnut Oak or Rock Oak) does have a similar bark.

Silver Maple has similar bark but again with more of a vertical bias than I see here.

Let me throw in an additional clue. When I made a fresh cut on that wood (no photo unfortunately), the outer 20% of the grain was lighter than what you see in the photo (which is a dried out end from an old cut).

Thanks again for the inputs so far!

 

[tomsteve]

looks like fire food wood to me.

 

[Guido Salvage]

Late to this but #1 is White Oak and #2 is Gum. Until recently I lived an hour from the OP and both are common species in the area.

 

[pdqdl]

Not white oak. White oak has grooves between the ridges.


Pics above have overlapping plates.

 

[Steve2910]

#1 old Silver Maple, #2 ?