This Tree Is ? ?

[Puffergas]

Any idea what the name of this tree is?


It grew fast. Faster than any tree around these parts.


It's some what close to some trees my Gramps planted about 30 years ago. And it looks a lot like them. They never amounted to a saw log but they would make nice firewood and maybe charcoal. I never thought they grew fast but maybe they grow fast when they are small.



I would like to plant some if I only knew what species they are...

Thanks. ☺

[ReggieT]

Any idea what the name of this tree is?


It grew fast. Faster than any tree around these parts.


It's some what close to some trees my Gramps planted about 30 years ago. And it looks a lot like them. They never amounted to a saw log but they would make nice firewood and maybe charcoal. I never thought they grew fast but maybe they grow fast when they are small.



I would like to plant some if I only knew what species they are...

Thanks.

I'd like to know myself...I see a few on my Pops property.

[beenthere]

Reminds me of sweet birch with those bark lenticels.

Does the inner bark taste like wintergreen?

Leaves don't look pointy enough tho.

[bitternut]

I believe it is a Gray or European Alder. Several of the fruit farms around my home area planted them as screens to their orchards a few years ago. I got a few from the local extension service annual spring tree seedling sale and planted them at my property in the southern tier of wny. They do grow very fast. No idea what the proper or scientific name is.

[mesquite buckeye]

I also was thinking some kind of alder... ;D

[beenthere]

Agree on an alder.. and the leaves are more alder-like as well.

[Puffergas]

I think I found a new hero tree.. ☺

Interesting link below:

http://www.permies.com/mobile/t/5978/woodland/alder-Alnus-glutinosa?foo=a

Later I'll take some photos of Gramp's alder grove... 😉

[ReggieT]

How is it fer firewood? :

[John Mc]

How is it fer firewood? :

I'm not familiar with that specific species of Alder, but if it's anything like Red or White Alder (and I suspect it is, given how fast it grows), then it's not so hot as firewood: a bit less BTUs than Hemlock, a bit more than White Pine. If you are burning softwood for heat, I suppose you might think it's OK.

[mesquite buckeye]

It will burn. ;D 8) 8) 8)

[ReggieT]

...and so will a zillion other animate & inanimate objects. :D

[John Mc]

I didn't mean to come across as a firewood snob (though I sort of am - I can afford to be with the good firewood species we have here). I usually burn beech, oak, black birch, hop hornbeam.

Alder certainly has some BTUs in it, but you'll be making more trips to the wood stove to keep things warm than you would with other species. I've been known to heat with white pine, red cedar, or aspen, all of which come in below Alder in terms of BTU content. It's not my preference, but it works. Just don't try to choke your stove way down to make it last longer. It burns much less efficiently, so you lose BTUs to some of the unburned gasses which go up your chimney and cause creosote formation, rather than providing you BTUs. (A catalytic stove can help with this - it can get the gasses to burn at a much lower temperature than a non-cat stove.)

[Puffergas]

Nobody remembers what Gramps planted but they they say that Alder might be it. Here's a few photos.



Didn't amount to much in all that time but I like them.



If they would have been thinned some could grow to make a saw log.

[Puffergas]

Ahhh, firewood. No problem. We burn everything. Good old hardwood overnight and dry pine to heat things up fast. It's kind a like figuring out how to get that log on the landing..  😱

[deadfall]

I have nine acres of red alder and I love it.  If you don't replant when you log here, and don't poison the deciduous trees like the timber companies do, you will have thousands of red alders that will self thin to a point.  If you do thin them, the growth rate is gangbusters!  You will have saw logs and a woodlot you can't keep up with on very few acres.  My acreage was logged around 50 years ago and was an alder thicket when I bought it.  I wish I had thinned more than I did early on.  White alder is a much smaller tree that grows up in BC and points north. 

It's true that it hasn't the heat of maple or cherry, but it gives decent heat and not too much ash.  It holds coals very well.  Some folks smoke with nothing else, though my choice here is vine maple.  For lumber, it is soft and brittle.  But the clear stuff from vertically standing trees will make many things.  The industry wants it dead-a$$ green into the kilns to keep the wood white for staining to look like black walnut.  Bogus!  They make cheap furniture with it.  It's crappy for that, IMHO.  I am experimenting with it for construction, making it oversized and combining it with fir and other long-fiber softwoods.  Using it mainly under compression loads, and never in tension. 

It has poor rot resistance.  I know a guy who is experimenting with it for sheathing out-buildings, doing board and baton after it has been painted on all sides.  I think he's onto something with this.  Since it is the species I have, I will figure out as many ways to use it as I can. 

They are fairly mature at 80 years and in their prime at 50 to 60 (like mine). 

They saw like butter green and a sharpening lasts a very long time.  It carves easily and has a very even grain. 

So, there is my run-down on the red alder, except to say that I picked about 60 pounds of shiitake mushrooms from my alder logs in the past week.  They are delicious.  The sawdust bag grown ones in the store are going for $10.99 per pound.

[mesquite buckeye]

That is so cool. ;D 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

[John Mc]

Interesting info on red alder, deadfall.

If it grows fast, and leaves little ash, it would seem to be a candidate for biomass heating - either wood chips or pellets. I can;t recall the fast growing species that some are growing test plots of here to investigate "farming" them for wood chips going to biomass boilers.

[deadfall]

I think I have IDed the OP's tree in question as Alnus glutenosa, the European black alder.

http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=157



=====================================

Here's our red alder, Alnus rubra:

http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=191

 

I wonder that it hasn't been imported like the European tree.  I would think it would grow fast in the same regions.  Another good thing about it is that it, like legumes (which it is not), it is a nitrogen fixer and improves soil fertility. 

[Ron Scott]

http://www.na.fs.fed.us/pubs/silvics_manual/volume_2/alnus/rubra.htm

[Puffergas]

Many thanks to everybody, I never expected this much information..!

About an 1/8 mile away is a field that floods at least twice a year. It's behind a flood control dam. About three years ago we stopped mowing it and now I think these trees are growing there. I'll have to check them out. Gramps is gone now but he still might be planting.

[deadfall]

Here's a nice red alder log. 

[deadfall]

Since red alder is what I have on my land, and since I use it for so many things, and for so long, I just thought of one very important bit of info for anyone else who deals with it.  For me this next detail was very counterintuitive.  Like I mentioned about the industry wanting logs and lumber to be sawed fresh green to get to the kilns before the wood discolors, and it does discolor very quickly (see the red ends of the log and cant above), for me, the discoloring makes no matter.  But here's what I learned after some years of dealing with it, both as firewood and as saw logs:  if you do not buck or saw it for an extended time, say only months, but even a year or so, do not deck logs up above the ground to keep it dry.  Keep it wet.   It goes punky amazingly fast if allowed to dry as a log.  Perhaps it's because of sugars in the wood.  I don't know.  I now deck the logs with them all in ground contact, one layer deep, as the moisture seems to help preserve them for a little more time.  Lumber, stacked and stickered, does fine, but will color up.  Whole logs will begin to go to punk immediately if allowed to dry. 

[BradMarks]

Some other notes on Red Alder.   It is used extensively in cabinetry and door making. Very nice looking. It fetches a higher $/bd ft than douglas fir, but produces less per acre than the fir. Years ago, the cut over lands with poor regen came back in the "weed tree" alder.  There were efforts to rehab a lot of these stands, laying a lot of alder on the ground, and using chemicals to prevent resprouts.  Those that didn't rehab,  reaped the rewards much later down the road when the alder market went bonkers.  As said, it is over mature at 80 yrs, usually dead at 100. Maxes out at about 80 feet tall. It does not have a long life span. And it burns OK, smells good, and probably better in a smoker than the wood stove, unless of course that's what you have.

[Puffergas]

Didn't have much luck finding seedlings, really didn't have the time. So I'm giving this a try. Any idea when to pull them out to plant? That is if they root. The youngest trees had the best soft wood and it was a bit sticky.

https://youtu.be/WyXSNzywqvw

[Chuck White]

Thanks for posting the video.

I never thought that propagation was that simple!

[Puffergas]

Chuck, your welcome.

Anybody have an idea what tree this is..? Maybe it's not a tree because it is out growing the Sumac next to it.



Big leaves that look like jumbo Maple leaves.





Grows in clumps.




Bark can be saggy or smooth

[mesquite buckeye]

That would be a sycamore. ;D 8) 8) 8)

[Puffergas]

That would be a sycamore. ;D 8) 8) 8) :snowball:

Thanks!! Kind of an interesting tree. I'll try growing some from cuttings. The below video shows using just a leaf.

https://youtu.be/fzwVKZ6UoGM

[Puffergas]

Only time will tell..... I had to redo it because some kind of animal, or something, tore into it. Plus laying on the ground the slugs started to move in.   😦

[Carson-saws]

The Virginia Tech app is pretty good.  The GPS location or network location helps a bit.  The Audubon Society field manual is  very helpful.  The downfall, in my opinion,  the app works as long as you are in an area that grants you a signal.  No signal, no info.  The field manual is small, user friendly and the only signal you need is the one going from your fingers flipping pages and your eyes sending the signal to your brain.  Real handy to have on hand, in regard to the species I.D.

[DRB]

This Red alder was in my yard about 3 foot in dia. It was solid at the base but the top broke out and it was rotten at the top.  3 feet is about the biggest they get but they grow fast I think this one was only about 60 years old. 

[Puffergas]

This spring/summer I had good luck transplanting some wild alder. My cuttings died but I'll try again in the spring.