Primitive Archer

Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: DuBois on August 07, 2015, 10:15:35 am

Title: Wood ID help
Post by: DuBois on August 07, 2015, 10:15:35 am

Old neighbor cut this down this spring. He said it had leaves like a cherry but never produced fruit. It smelled almost sickeningly sweet, like a car air freshener when I stripped the bark. 3 straight trunks. What you think?

Title: Re: Wood ID help
Post by: JoJoDapyro on August 07, 2015, 10:52:06 am

I recently posted photos of the same tree. Cherry like leaves and bark. Pine cone like seed pods, but very small.

http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,53461.0.html (http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,53461.0.html)

Title: Re: Wood ID help
Post by: blackhawk on August 07, 2015, 10:53:48 am

Def a cherry....pin cherry maybe/i think.....good luck...your gonna need it

Title: Re: Wood ID help
Post by: rps3 on August 07, 2015, 11:02:25 am

I am no tree expert and certainly don't have the knowledge to contradict Chris, but when we were kids we would eat the bark off those trees and called them birch.

Title: Re: Wood ID help
Post by: Pat B on August 07, 2015, 11:22:19 am

I'd say cherry also.

Title: Re: Wood ID help
Post by: Marc St Louis on August 07, 2015, 12:20:27 pm

If it's low density wood, and the growth rings would suggest that, then it would be a Pin Cherry

Title: Re: Wood ID help
Post by: wapiti1997 on August 07, 2015, 06:41:23 pm

If you are at higher elevation  1800' and above and it smells like wintergreen I'd say sweet birch, black cherry smells nasty, not sure about the other native cherries.

Title: Re: Wood ID help
Post by: Pat B on August 07, 2015, 07:21:50 pm

The sweet birch here doesn't have bark like that. It is gray in color and doesn't have the obvious lenticels like this tree does. 

Title: Re: Wood ID help
Post by: Redhand on August 07, 2015, 07:42:09 pm

That looks like what we call river birch where I live

Title: Re: Wood ID help
Post by: Pat B on August 07, 2015, 10:53:23 pm

 River birch has exfoliating bark and not smooth bark like this one.

Title: Re: Wood ID help
Post by: mikekeswick on August 08, 2015, 03:06:13 am

Birch.

Title: Re: Wood ID help
Post by: wapiti1997 on August 08, 2015, 10:54:13 am

The presence of many lenticels in sweet birch is why it's scientific name is Betula lenta.  The "air freshener" smell described makes me think sweet birch.  I've always wanted to cut one for a bow next time I'm in the mountains.

(http://woodyplants.cals.cornell.edu/images/medium/pid-342-1.jpg)

Title: Re: Wood ID help
Post by: Pat B on August 08, 2015, 11:00:55 am

Our sweet birch doesn't look like that. It is gray in color and not red like in these pics. It does have the wintergreen smell and it was distilled into oil of wintergreen back in the day.

Title: Re: Wood ID help
Post by: JoJoDapyro on August 08, 2015, 11:27:13 am

That is for sure the same tree that I posted.

Title: Re: Wood ID help
Post by: thomcout_96 on August 08, 2015, 11:51:57 am

Looks alot like cherry and it is possible that a tree doest not produced fruit for multiple reasons.

Title: Re: Wood ID help
Post by: Pat B on August 08, 2015, 11:59:06 am

There are flowering ornamental cherries that don't fruit.