Shagbark Look-a-likes

[TexasTimbers]

I would give you a picture but my skidsteer ran over my camera yesterday out in the woods. I had nothing to do with it.  :

But are there any other species that have bark which closely resemble Shagbark Hickory?

[limbrat]

I saw some trees in the Little River WMA last winter while looking for some feral porkers. They had water marks better than 10' off the ground and looked like they stand in water a couple of times a year. They were leafless but there shape reminded me of a water pecan or bitternut and the outer bark was hanging off of them in strips like picures ive seen of a Shagbark Hickory. Are your trees in a river flood plane?

[Jeff]

I wouldn't call these look a-likes, but they have some similarities I'd think.  I took these photos of some ash in da U.P. earlier in the month.   It seems I remember there are more then one type of shag bark in the hickories as well.

[WDH]

Why do you think that it is not a shagbark?

[Brian Beauchamp]

Shellbark Hickory...honeylocust can sometimes have similar bark...I've also seen a few pecans with pretty shaggy bark as well as silver maple

[TexasTimbers]

What I have may be hickory. Not a honeylocust I know them. Yes it's in a flood plane limrat. Jeff that smaller one on the right (bottom picture) looks real close to what I am talking about. I guess since the one on the left is just much more mature the bark looks different, but my trees are almost as big but have the bark more similiar to yours on the right.

[Dodgy Loner]

Pignut hickory, silver maple, and black willow can all have very shaggy bark.  Of those three, the maple would have bark most similar to the one in Jeff's picture.  I never seen any ashes with bark like that down South!

[TexasTimbers]

Maples that grow down south in large numbers?  I have been under the assumption/impression/idea whatever it may be called, that the only indigenous acer we have down here is negundo.

I come across an occassional red in a yard driving by in town, but AFAIK the only ones a fellow might run across in the wild other than negundo would be planted by a bird that dropped a seed the old fashined way, from having lit in a yard tree in town.

I do know that I have been walking right past white oak (alba I am referring to) here because I did not have a trained eye for the leaves. I have been assuming, that since all these danged post oaks and burr oaks abound here in in my part of the world (known as the Texas Cross Timbers region) I have not been looking for alba. Since my latest logging excursion into a part of a tract I work, the final absence of rain has  allowed me to get across the dry river bed where I have logged very little, I have discovered a whole new world it seems. There is white oaks galore over there and huge ones (for here anyway; 36"+), burr oak, algerian oak (just kiddin dubya ;) ) and of course all the walnut and negundo you can shake a stick at. I go in for those two species almost exclusively and believe I have been suffering from tunnel vision.

I believe - in hindsight from looking in my books yesterday and online, I have some black locust in there as well which is another species along with white oak that the archives will clearly show I have stated all along "I don't have white oak here . . . I don't have black locust here".

I used to not have Mesquite or large honeylocust here once upon a time either but the things grew up all around me overnight. I guess my rambling point is turning into a question. As usual my long-winded posts have evolved (sorry Phil ;D ) into numerous questions as I type so I will hope someo of you will pick and choose one or two or three:

1) Did any of you start to suddenly see species you didn't see before that were all around you, as your eye became more trained?

2) Any of you other southerners see maples growing in the wild down here in any significant numbers?

3) I have trouble distinguishing between post, burr, and alba. Could one or more of these white oaks I am thinking of as Q. Alba be a hybrid? 

[Jeff]

  I never seen any ashes with bark like that down South!

Well, since yer going to an old wedding, you aint going to get to see this one until; next year!  ;)

[Jeff]

Kevin, did you ever read this?
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,45.0.html

Its always stuck with me since reading it. I think about the passage almost any time I am in the woods.

[TexasTimbers]

No I missed that one Jeff. but Horace explained me to a T 42 years before I hit the ground.

I got several useful tidbits from it that helped put it back into perspective, and the thing that I was struck most by is something I continue to forget when I am in the field. Trees in my books are almost always shown as they grow in an open field, and all of the trees I log are in the woods. Two different animals for the most part.

That read was inspiring. Helps remove some of the frustration that trys to creep in. Thanks for the link.

[SPIKER]

above is pig nut hickory
below is shagbark (king nut) Hickory and std shagbark hickory



below is twig from shagbark hickory, (sorry poor pic)


hope that helps for ohio region that is ;)

[WDH]

TT,

The white oak that you have there in the bottomland is likely Swamp chestnut oak.  Similiar to chinkapin, but no swollen glanular tips.  The leaf margin has been described as scalloped, like the margin of a scallop shell .

[TexasTimbers]

I guess it must be King Nut Shagbark. That middle picture is real close Spiker. Not the same but closer than anything I have seen.

W, are you referring to the "Algerian Oak"? The Swamp Oak does grow down here in spades but the leaf is not close to what I was looking at. If you're referring to my white oak confusion of course it is not even close.

I am gonna buy a camera soon I'll snap some photos in the next day or 20. 

[WDH]

Cameras are our friends ;D.