crabapple?

[iwearhats]

I was helping to clear out a bunch of brush and took back and bunch of long logs for some craftwork. There is one I am having trouble putting an ID to. I want to say it's some sort of crabapple, but I am not sure.


 

 


 


 

[SwampDonkey]

Looks like a crab to me. Pinkish purplish heart?

[wisconsitom]

....or hawthorn.

[iwearhats]

The cambium has a purplish tint, which makes me think it's probably a crab. The lack of a pinkish purplish heart is why I am second guessing myself. Hawthorne is another good candidate now that I think about it. I thought hawthorne bark was suppose to be more... flaky though? If it is hawthorne the only probable candidate would be downy hawthorne (more common to my parts in northern IL).

[wisconsitom]

Notice any thorns in the brush?

[SwampDonkey]

Cut a cookie off the but end and split through the heart of it. See what you get. Oxidation probably changes the colour a bit.

[wisconsitom]

I'd say crab or hawthorn.  Bark and wood remind me of hawthorn the most.

[WDH]

Yes, very hawthornesque.

[iwearhats]

Cut a cookie off the but end and split through the heart of it. See what you get. Oxidation probably changes the colour a bit.

What should I be looking for when I split through the heart of a biscuit?

[wisconsitom]

I say old chap, did the tree have thorns?

[SwampDonkey]

Purple-pink heart, unadulterated by oxidation.

[iwearhats]

I say old chap, did the tree have thorns?

No idea. I just got the log. I didn't see the tree.

Purple-pink heart, unadulterated by oxidation.

I see some purplish tint.
 

 



 

[kantuckid]

I made an oval bowl (using a gouge alone) in ~ 1974 or 5 from an old plum tree that had died in the farm yard where we rented the old house. My bowl sits about 5-6' from where I sit now. It's entirely heartwood, and like most fruitwoods it has that look you see above. I've also worked lots of Applewood which also has that look, but neither have that bark seen above?
Hawthorne on our place never seems to get much more than shoulder high and I leave them around the house as they flower up in spring. 

[SwampDonkey]

Looks like apple wood to me. Our hawthorne up here are not big and have very rough bark when they age Plums have a reddish brown bark: Canada and Stanley plums I'm accustomed to. But there are many species of hawthorn across the continent. I have seen entire fields grow up in hawthorne and wild apples. Great for wildlife, but try and walk in it. Some wild apples have long thorns, but not usually sharp tipped. But will tear a quilted shirt to heck. Wild plum up here develop thorns and I have seen some the size of dwarf apple trees when mature, but mostly 2" diameter stuff. And those big ones I only saw on 2 sites. Very old abandoned homesteads from the 19C. Lots were abandoned during WWI and they were clearcut after 100 years of second growth forest.

[wisconsitom]

Hawthorns are small trees here, with bark like that in the photo.  Easily attain that size.  I'm sure at some point or other, a 12" DBH one has had to be sawn down by us for some reason or other.

Don't ask me what kind of hawthorns we got around here though.... I'm not good with the genus, plus many hybridized forms out there, including some old-world genetics.

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah when studying shrubs we never differentiated between the hawthorn species, the serviceberries species, nor the willow species. Probably above the pay grade of a Forester.

[wisconsitom]

I like to do the willows, but they're also promiscuous, with the possibility that what you're looking at is a hybrid....

Was being trained in doing veg transects and sampling plots with a renowned expert botanist years ago, inquired about some willow we passed, and he just waved his hand and said, "I don't do willows".  Heh, I never let myself off that easy!  That guy knew every grass and forb, but even then, I knew my woody plant knowledge was at least equal to, if not better than this fellow's.