Mulberry

[Al Smith]

I took down a tree,growing over a house,2 years ago.I didn't have a clue what it was.My arborist friend told me it was a male mulberry.Hmm,I said to myself.I sliced and diced it,and threw the wood in a pile.Several days ago I tried to split a piece,hard as a rock.I then discovered it is related to Osage orange,that explains it.With the help of my 5 pound splitting axe,I got some split,to find it is yellow in color,like a locust,hmm.The growth rings are about 3/4" wide,which would normally indicate soft wood,not in this case.I thought a picture would be nice because I doubt many people have seen mulberry wood,including myself.It's the yellow stuff,at the front of the wheelbarrow,the other is hickory.

 

[woodshop]

Yup, they are related, both are Moraceae family, along with strangler fig and paper mulberry (in North America). Mulberry is pretty wood to work in woodshop, as is Osage orange. Osage though, is much harder wood, thus more difficult to work. One thing many folks don't know about Osage, is its rot resistance. The stuff will sit in wet soil for many many years and not deteriorate. I have it on the bottoms of my picnic table legs.
Dave

 

[cybergeek23851]

Mulberry is a good burning wood,...just hard for my neck of the woods. After the flood in '99, I had to remove about 5 well-developed mulberry trees, and a few other fruit trees and burn them because they all died out from something going wrong in the soil after the flood. The wood put out a very sticky sap as I cut it, and was a total pain in the arse to clean my ropes up after (they were growing on a hillside, had to rappel down it).

 

[Beast12]

Yeah, it is a good hard wood. Not too bad to split if you have a wood splitter.

And yes it also has a milky white sap that makes everything sticky. Not really fun. They remind me of Manitoba Maples.

-Matt