Is this black locust?

[buzz sawyer]

I'm betting the tree in question is a Siberian Elm. We get lots of them around here, and the bark of your tree looks close to a match. They also have somewhat dark stains in the wood.
That tree has a lot more moss than I am accustomed to seeing, but I would attribute that to the local weather.

As to locust species: I'd say that all the wild locust have thorns, but the common landscape locust is a thornless honey locust. The only value for the black locusts in the urban landscape is for their highly scented flowers. There is a very special variety that grows red flowers in late spring, rather than all the normal white-flowering black locust.

+1

 

[S Petrovas]

Black locust has ridiculous thorns on it. Similar to Whitethorn.

It's an incredibly hardwood for the West coast.

Honey locust has the thorns

 

[EchoRomeoCharlie]

Honey locust has the thorns

Some does, some doesn't.

Same with black locust. I've seen young black locust with and without(mostly with). I've seen mature black locust with and without, mostly without around here.

We have a ton of black locust around here. Most of our fence lines are infested with it.

 

[SweetMK]

Some does, some doesn't.

Same with black locust. I've seen young black locust with and without(mostly with). I've seen mature black locust with and without, mostly without around here.

We have a ton of black locust around here. Most of our fence lines are infested with it.

I have lived at the same property for 40 years, and we have LOTS of locust.
The interesting thing about our variety of locust is that when the plant is recently sprouted, the locust will have enormous thorns.
As the tree matures, the tree will have less and less thorns.

If a locust looses a branch, for whatever reason, many times that location will develop a new branch.
The new branch will be covered with thorns, whereas nearby branches have few, or even no thorns.

This sort of explains why sometimes a locust is seen with thorns,, and sometimes not.

We had a windstorm push over a large locust, into a pasture of grass.
The EXACT outline of where the locust hit could be seen the following year.

Many of the branches that were driven into the ground by the falling tree simply sprouted into a tree.
Hundreds of locust trees popped up.
I had to use 2-4-D type herbicide on that spot for three or four years to eliminate those branch-started sprouts.

 

[SweetMK]

I wanted a few boards that I could make a "cold frame" out of for my garden.
The cold frame will sit on dirt forever, so, I wanted locust boards.
I found a locust tree that had been laying down for at least 3 years, and I freehand cut the log into sort of board shaped pieces.
I plan on bolting the boards together with lag bolts,, I doubt that I could drive a nail into the wood.

 

[Bill G]

As I said back in post #13 it does not matter what type of Locust it is some cultivars will be thorned and some will not. The presence or absence of thorns is no where near a definitive identifier.................although I cannot think of another species that has the nasty long thorn clusters that some Locust do. It would be interesting to know if there is another species that has a similar thorn structure and arrangement.

 

[blades]

Around my parts the center section of the Black Locust would be kinda brite yellow when fresh cut, can't tell on my monitor. the leaves shown say elm group to me.