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General Forestry => Tree, Plant and Wood I.D. => Topic started by: stanmillnc on April 30, 2019, 04:57:31 PM

Title: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: stanmillnc on April 30, 2019, 04:57:31 PM
Got a lead on huge "black walnut" logs today, so I dropped what I was doing and raced down to the site being cleared before they were chipped up. They are huge - 38" diameter at the stump and one has a nice crotch, so it was worth picking up, but looks to me like these are white walnut / butternut. These two are the same species, right? Bark on these seems a less deeply furrowed and more gray than brown than I've seen on black walnut. Also, seems like less dark heartwood and more sapwood than I normally see with black walnut. Can someone please confirm? Thanks!

 
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/50848/IMG_4039.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1556657605)
 
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/50848/IMG_4037~0.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1556657604)
 
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/50848/IMG_4045.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1556657611)
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: Don P on April 30, 2019, 05:30:42 PM
Quite likely, this was one we got a week or so ago, nice score!

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10017/butternut3.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1555030881)

A butternut crotch end table from a year or two ago.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10017/bnutet1b.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1556659774)
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: KEC on April 30, 2019, 09:55:59 PM
I don't know what they are, but I don't believe it's Butternut. Butternut has gray bark and the ends of the logs don't look right.
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: WDH on April 30, 2019, 10:07:00 PM
I believe that it is hickory.  Many people confuse hickory nuts with walnuts. 
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: stanmillnc on April 30, 2019, 10:26:45 PM
Not hickory for sure. I've cut and milled all types of hickory and this isn't nearly as hard and looks very different. It is not dense like black walnut either.....no nuts lying around unfortunately.
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: Don P on May 01, 2019, 06:34:25 AM
It is a good bit less dense than black. I pick up the same walnut smells while milling it, not as strong but still walnut.
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: WDH on May 01, 2019, 07:49:20 AM
OK.  Next option is elm.  Looking closely at the end grain, are the latewood pores arranged in wavy bands?
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: Don P on May 08, 2019, 08:53:22 PM
We were sawing today and something else hit me in the face :D
The inner bark of a butternut is a pretty bright yellow. It's also slipping now.  The bark was used during the civil war to dye the uniforms of some southern troops a brown-yellow which is where the term "butternuts" came from.

Edit: From this USFPL link, if you use iron as a mordant with butternut bark dye you get a grey uniform, that makes more sense.
https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/ethnobotany/dyes.shtml (https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/ethnobotany/dyes.shtml)
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: stanmillnc on May 09, 2019, 07:29:13 AM
 
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/50848/IMG_4057.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1557401270)


Here she is opened up - looks like butternut to me!
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: Don P on May 09, 2019, 08:03:23 AM
The color is right, more sapwood than I'm used to but every tree is an individual. Butternut is very often a cross between Japanese heartnut, of which there are several, and our butternut, the cross is a buart. Our natives are in decline from an Asian canker fungi that the crosses are often able to survive. It's apparently kind of new to the dendro guys and gives them fits trying to save pure strains, the two freely interbreed.  I always have trouble on a screen vs being there. Another clue, the pith is just like a black walnut, that loose open pith. I messed up on one set of cuts yesterday and made a group of quartersawnish cuts, butternut is much more handsome in flatsawn orientation.
After that recollection on it being a dye yesterday I was googling last night and confirmed that is was a confederate dyestuff, shot off an email this morning to the lady that runs the local living history museum, makes period clothing and is part of a reenactors group. She has made and used the dye and is coming after some bark.
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: moodnacreek on May 09, 2019, 01:00:47 PM
So there is and was butter nut down south. That is not what I would have expected. It has become rare here in s. n.y. and I have only sawn a few in 35 years but up north near the border you can find big ones where they have no black walnut. It is much colder up there with shorter summers.
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: Banjo picker on May 09, 2019, 08:51:07 PM
 
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/18028/Tim_and_butternut_tree.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1307059694)
 There is at least one in Mississippi.  I planted about 30 and this is the lone survivor.  Several others came up but died shortly there after.  @Dodgy Loner (http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=5533) sent me the nuts.  This one is several years older now, probably 16 foot tall or so.  Hope it makes it.  Banjo
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: WDH on May 09, 2019, 09:57:41 PM
I am not convinced that it is not hickory. That is exactly what hickory is supposed to look like.
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: moodnacreek on May 10, 2019, 08:15:00 AM
WDH, yes but butternut is really soft.
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: stanmillnc on May 10, 2019, 08:18:01 AM
Yes, this wood is soft; certainly not hickory - I've cut a lot of hickory and its very hard, not comparable whatsoever with this wood. I agree that the grain pattern is similar to some hickory however.
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: Hewer of Wood on May 10, 2019, 08:18:15 PM
Well if it's not hickory then maybe a type of elm? Or possibly a soft maple? Pretty sure it's not Butternut though.
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: KEC on May 10, 2019, 08:42:07 PM
I am puzzeled enough by this that I'll try to go behind the house and get a photo of a butternut and put it on here. I don't see butternut  here.
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: KEC on May 11, 2019, 06:48:47 PM
A Butternut Tree in Southern Onondaga County, N.Y.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/50283/RSCN2765~1.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1557615346)
 
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/50283/RSCN2765~1.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1557615346)
 
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/50283/RSCN2765~0.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1557848133)
 
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: moodnacreek on May 11, 2019, 09:39:24 PM
That's butternut, related to b. walnut which is related to hickory.
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: Don P on May 11, 2019, 10:29:07 PM
More pics of the wood here;
http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/butternut.htm (http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/butternut.htm)
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: stavebuyer on May 12, 2019, 04:35:22 AM
The logs in question look.like elm and nothing like butternut. I have seen,
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: SwampDonkey on May 12, 2019, 04:38:40 AM
In the original post I would have to say no to butternut. The bark isn't right and neither is the wood. I have never seen all them grain patterns in butternut nor wide sapwood. Sapwood is very thin on butternut, up here anyway. And when you saw the wood the surface is a bit fuzzy or raised grain like with basswood. Wood has no characteristic odour. I know when I have handled walnut and butternut, the butternut had no smell but the walnut did have an odour. The wood of butternut is chestnut brown and a little bit of a pinkish hue sometimes.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Butternut_Finish-002.jpg)

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_nightstand4.jpg)

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_footlckr-004.jpg)
Title: Re: Tree ID - are these white walnut / butternut logs?
Post by: WDH on May 12, 2019, 07:30:07 AM
Quote from: WDH on May 01, 2019, 07:49:20 AM
OK.  Next option is elm.  Looking closely at the end grain, are the latewood pores arranged in wavy bands?
Look for the wavy bands..........