Need help with Tree ID...before I labor!

[ReggieT]

Hey guys,
I have permission to dispatch the rest of this tree which can be referenced in my other thread entitled, " How do I maximize this downed tree?"
After doing a little more research I'm not thoroughly convinced that it is a Red Oak...several pics online show that it favors Box Elder, Maple or Elm...I really need your help before I commence making it into firewood.

BTW, is Box Elder and the above mentioned bad firewood, so to speak??
Hope you all had a blessed & safe Thanksgiving holiday.

What is this tree???
The leaf wound up in the my P/u bed...hope its from ze tree! lol

Thanks
Reg

 

[TreePointer]

Freshly cut or split oak will smell like oak boards at the lumber store. The smell is unmistakable to me.

That does not look like any boxelder I've cut. Maples (including boxelder) will have opposite branching. Did you notice this in the smaller branches and twigs? Boxelder is an amazing tree. If it falls over, it will sprout branches growing straight up out of the horizontal trunk!

 

[KindredSpiritzz]

well its not box elder or maple so i'd lean towards elm. I burn box elder and i think it makes decent firewood, but nothing to get excited over.

 

[ReggieT]

This had a rather pungent

Freshly cut or split oak will smell like oak boards at the lumber store. The smell is unmistakable to me.

That does not look like any boxelder I've cut. Maples (including boxelder) will have opposite branching. Did you notice this in the smaller branches and twigs? Boxelder is an amazing tree. If it falls over, it will sprout branches growing straight up out of the horizontal trunk!

This had a rather pungent odor...and made my wife cough when I burned a couple chunks (unseasoned of course)...

 

[Lignum]

Looks like Red Oak. The leaf doesn't match the wood though. If it is indeed Red Oak, when you are cutting or splitting the wood, the smell will curl you nose hairs. I have had my wife very upset when I have split a bunch of that stuff and the breeze carries that smell through the house when the windows were open.

 

[ReggieT]

Looks like Red Oak. The leaf doesn't match the wood though. If it is indeed Red Oak, when you are cutting or splitting the wood, the smell will curl you nose hairs. I have had my wife very upset when I have split a bunch of that stuff and the breeze carries that smell through the house when the windows were open.

Hmm...I concur...it has a very unique funk...all its own!

 

[haveawoody]

Reggie T,
Red oak for sure.
Really nice firewood but a long wait for it to be ready 2-3 years to dry properly.
Northern Red oak and Southern Red oak are two different beasts so I can't make to much of a comment on smell cutting it but our northern red oak almost smells like stale whiskey when first cut.

 

[1project2many]

Looks like Oak to me as well. You can see part of the tree was starting to decay. The brown/black line around 5:00 marks the line where good and bad wood meet. Decaying Oak IME is very consistent. It usually starts to rot from the outside, just under the bark, and very slowly works toward the center of the tree. If the bark comes off standing dead Oak the wood will season and often stop decaying or slow down to the point where it takes years to rot away. Where it's decayed the wood has a lighter colored, sponge-like appearance. When splitting green, Oak can be somewhat stringy but tends to stay together fairly well. Small pieces that break off are fewer and less likely to pile up around where you're splitting.

Maple and Elm decay differently. Maple tends to decay much faster than Oak and rot can be found almost anywhere in the wood when a round is cut or split. When splitting dead or dying wood, the discoloration you can see in the logs above could be distributed throughout a split and often good and bad wood are hard to separate into usable pieces. When Maple dies and remains standing it often rots in place very fast with the bark still intact and when you cut it there's little usable wood left. When splitting good Maple you often get "potato chips" that break off and litter the splitting area.

Elm IME usually loses its bark in large sheets. If Elm has been attacked by beetles carrying Dutch Elm disease then you'll see the results of their work on the outside of the tree. When green, Elm species tend to be stringy. There are plenty of manly men that have been humbled trying to split a piece of green American Elm by hand as the stringiness of the wood holds it together like few other species. Once the tree starts to rot it happens fairly quickly. Stringiness disappears and the wood breaks down fairly quickly in large areas.

Finally, the ends of a round of Elm, Maple, and Oak all look different when cut. Oak will tend to have small lines that radiate out from the center of the wood and will appear "coarse" when cut. Maple will have a much smoother appearance and if it starts to decay you'll see the indications at seemingly random places in the wood. Oak tends to have the smallest growth rings with Maple being next and Elm often having the largest rings. I just searched Google images for "maple logs" and "elm logs" and both searches produced pictures that are fairly typical for what I see when cutting these species up here.

 

[Whiskey_Bravo]

If it smells like piss...it is Red Oak. I have cut, split, and stacked close to 5 chords of Red Oak this year and mine looks very similar to your pictures. It will turn from red to yellow/tan after you split it and dry it for a few days. Great stuff. I look forward to burning mine some time this decade...

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

Just for reference, Box elder is a white wood and generally has a red core, usually 1 -2 inches on larger pieces, at least around here anyway. Sometimes the red will be like a blood red and brilliant in color. When it drys, it is very light,

 

[zogger]

I am not sure on that leaf *at all* Wood looks like oak, but need one of the smarter guys to ID that leaf. Was it actually growing from a branch of that wood?

 

[HuskStihl]

The leaf looks kinda like the water oak we have here

 

[PA Dan]

Looks like red oak to me!

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

 

[brewmonster]

The leaf looks like pear.

 

[513yj]

The leaf appears not to belong to the oak firewood you have there.

 

[Whitespider]

The leaf appears to be Eastern Cottonwood... the wood ain't.
Like most of the other opinions, my best guess on the wood is one of the Red Oaks.

 

[brewmonster]

Yeah, cottonwood seems more likely than pear.

 

[KindredSpiritzz]

looks like an aspen leaf to me but the wood looks like some sort of hardwood so the two don't match up to me.

 

[TreePointer]

Just for reference, Box elder is a white wood and generally has a red core, usually 1 -2 inches on larger pieces, at least around here anyway. Sometimes the red will be like a blood red and brilliant in color. When it drys, it is very light,

I agree. here's some known box elder from our farm:

 

[Whitespider]

looks like an aspen leaf to me...

Other than the Eastern Cottonwood, I don't believe you'll find Aspen or Poplar growing in Alabama.