Black Locust or what?

I'm not sure which stick is black locust. Both logs were retrieved from a different area though the bark is identical according to my eyes though one when I bucked it has much darker heartwood and is impossible to split green . . . What in the world! You can see some full swings I took at the one on the basswood round with a fiskars splitting axe. Whaddya think?

I'm not the best at wood ID but the one with the lighter heart looks to be black locust to me and the other stuff might be red elm?

the growth rings would lead me to believe its black locust, which is a pain in the tuckus to split green with a maul/axe, doesnt look stringy enough to be an elm

Jeff

Here's two more pics. They definitely must both be locust because the leaves were almost the same compound ovoid shape with like 6 or 7 pairs per leaflet. The darker one might be a hybrid . . .I guess it's possible. Maybe rock elm?

016 is locust without a doubt. If you look at the split pics the thicker bark is locust. Not sure what the other is

One is Black Locust. Can't tell about the other, but the small thorns on the branches would ID it , if it is.

groundup, 016 pic has the darker heartwood stick on the bottom and the black locust on top. I'll have to go back and find some twig samples. Sagetown, I didn't notice any thorns but I'll look again.The bark is almost identical to both. The darker one has a little darker bark than the black locust. The lighter wood must be black locust based and so many pics on google images I searched. Whatever the darker one is I'd like more since it seems extremely dense. We'll see how it dries and burns next season.

Sagetown said:

One is Black Locust. Can't tell about the other, but the small thorns on the branches would ID it , if it is.

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I think it's black locust too, but the thorns will not be conclusive. There is an enormous variation between individual trees. Most of ours have no thorns. The bark changes a lot from tree to tree. Sometimes they make bean pods, sometimes not even one. I've noticed quite a bit of variation like that with the honey locusts they planted near where I work too.

I can understand the sub-variety deviations. It can get confusing for sure.

Plenty of the Black Locust around here has no thorns, either. I scored a bunch of it one year and most of the wood had a greenish hue but once in a while I'd hit a dry piece which was more brown when split. The wood I split had a very distinct odor which was not offensive, but wasn't at all pleasant, either. I've read that a black light would cause some flourescence in BL but the UV and Black Lights I tried didn't seem to do anything dramatic. It is awesome wood for the woodpile.

I'm beginning to think slippery elm. Then again variations rule and black locust has been around for about several hundred years. I wouldn't be surprised if a hybridization produced nice walnut-like heartwood. If I was a better wood craftsman I would turn that little butt log into stools or something.

Oh yea it smells kinda like faint bandaids.

BTW, when I travel out to Western MA down rte 10 there is a ton of Black Locust along the river bottoms. I used to see it along Rte 202 when I'd follow that route to Palmer, too.

All of your pics look like the BL we have here, & I've cut/ split plenty of it over the years

If you have a blacklight, Black Locust will have some 'glow' under the light that is greenish-yellow.

The greenish wood is definitely black locust. I've split many cords of it with a maul, splits pretty easily. The reddish wood doesn't look like black locust to me at all.

black locust and chinese elm


The chartreuse wood could also be mulberry by the way. Depends on the bark and leaves.

The dark brown with white sapwood and the furrowed bark looks just like what is growing here. There's a membrane of sorts between the bark and the wood, like wet brown paper that is really thin. Some folks call it slippery elm because of it.

Credit due to encore and wdchuck as it must be slippery elm or chinese elm. Between the bark and sapwood there is a spongy membrane like butternut has. These membranes in slippery elm, I believe, are used as the digestive medicine found in drug stores and pharmacy's; used to be a preventative for scurvy as well. Hardest wood I've ever split. The black locust was pretty easy comparably. Eastern Hophornbeam doesn't even compare. Splitting crotch wood might be easier :rolleyes2:.

I agree with the Chinese elm for the last photo as well.

After searching many pics on google images it appears not to be chinese elm (ulmus parvifolia) but most definitely siberian elm (not red elm) being the middle aged bark on the pics I uploaded. Chinese elm has some very funky bark that is scaly with whites and reds with browns much unlike the siberian elm bark. Plus the testimony of how some will never touch the stuff lead me to believe it is one of the most difficult to split.