Is this Ash smells very minty

[A-z farmer]

A big oak was hit by lightning years ago and went down in a storm this last summer and took the tops out of many of these Ash but I am not sure they are ash 

 

 

[hacknchop]

Looks like what we call Black Ash or swamp ash , softer than white ash makes beautiful paneling especially V match t&g.

[barbender]

It kinda looks like black ash, but the bark doesn't look right to me.

[A-z farmer]

I will try and add a branch tip of this tree.I have never smelled this aroma of very minty in sawing trees before .

 

 

[barbender]

That bark really doesn't look like black ash. Looks more like white ash bark, but the wood doesn't. You have a lot of hardwoods in NY that I'm not familiar with. Butternut? Maybe a hickory? It's something I haven't seen. One of our resident hardwood guys will be along and give you a positive ID👍 @WDH ?

[WDH]

I believe that you have sassafras.  The finer branches should have a greenish color as they can photosynthesize. The wood is right (ring porous and cinnamon brown in the heartwood), the bark is pretty much right (interlacing ridges), the branch is right (I see some green color), the smell is right (according to your nose!).

Very beautiful wood.  @Yellowhammer saws a good bit of it.    

BTW, ash has opposite branching.  Your branch is alternate, not opposite. 

[A-z farmer]

WDH
Thank you for the identification and information of this tree.And you are right about the green color of the branches which it has.I am going to mill them up into boards and I hope it keeps it aroma after drying .

[WDH]

Such pretty wood. 

[YellowHammer]

Does it smell like A&W root beer?  If so, it's Sassafras.  

Sass is a high value log (more than ash) with a long and old school history in these part of the southern Appalacian Mountain range.  We have a customer who builds $1,500 pieces of furniture out of it, true to the old Appalacian form.  It is very rot resistant, and has a remarkable chatoyance when finished properly although it sometimes displays a little tint of green.  Of all the species we saw, sass is one of my favorites.  Its dries easily, but will check if dried too fast in 8/4, it dries flat and never sticker stains.  It's really a nice wood to work with.


The rot you see is commonly called black heart, and if it's not too pronounced, makes beautiful streaks in the wood.  

[hacknchop]

Well there you go , I should've known better no Sassafras around here ,you do get a minty smell when Ash starts to spalt more like licorice really, anyway I will stick to northern Ontario harwood trees , nowhere near the variety you guys see here it's;  W Birch, Y Birch  , Oak Red mainly have seen the odd W Oak maybe 10 trees in 40 yrs , White Ash ,Black Ash,Aspen, Balm of Gilead (Bam) Ironwood , Basswood,Hard Mpl and Soft Mpl (Red Mpl) , almost forgot Elm as it is slowly making a comeback after Dutch Elm back in the 70's, still enjoy seeing and learning about all the different trees. Thanks to the forum and experts willing to teach others.

[WV Sawmiller]

   The real fragrant smell sure sounds like sassafras - I never thought of it as minty but the root bear smell is spot on. There are likely 3 leaf shapes -long oval, single notch and double notch like a turkey track and sometimes but rarely seen a 4 shape. Ash to me always smells like an old bee tree with that old honey smell. That blocky bark doesn't look like the ash I am familiar with and I don't remember the ants getting in mine like your picture so sure sounds like sassafras.

[low_48]

Off center pith and that rot can go quite a long ways up the log in my experience. Not maybe the highest quality log.

[A-z farmer]

Wholly cow yellow hammer 
Root beer smell it is .I should have know the smell of root beer because 40 years ago a neighbor ole timer wanted he and I to make root beer just like his mom did when he was a kid .So he shows up one night with his moms galvanized wash tub but we used my brewing equipment instead. There is more of these trees in our woods I only cut three of them that had the tops broken by the falling oak .Around here the farmers never cut a live nut tree so they usually live for many hundred years until they get damaged .
Thank you everyone for the information 
And to think my brother thought they were some kind of poplars tree.
Zeke

[WDH]

I have made sassafras tea from the roots when I was young and foolish. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   My old mentor used to make sassafras tea. I think he marked the bushes/small trees and dug the roots in fall or winter. He boiled the roots and added sugar. I remember it tasted much like commercial root beer but I always remember it left a film that seemed to stick to my teeth. They don't seem to get very big up here. Mine get about 6-10 inches in diameter and die on me. The best small trees for making root beer always seemed to come from old field places that had not been plowed in 6-8 years as I remember.

[SwampDonkey]

Never knew it was even in New York state, but it seems that it has made it into that small band of Carolinian forest of southern Ontario. The range comes across from New York between Lakes Erie and Ontario, mostly on the north shore of L. Erie and wraps around the toe end of L. Ontario.

[A-z farmer]

I wonder if it is the birds that move the seeds of trees all around the country.I have found what I think is chestnut growing on our farms miles apart from each other .Our American chestnut has been gone for many years so it is a different species.

 

[SwampDonkey]

Sass grows as an opportunist, on old clearings, farms and such.

[WDH]

Your "chestnut" has compound leaves if the last pic is what you were referring to.  I believe it to be a hickory. 

[A-z farmer]

WDH
You are right I put up the wrong picture.
But I guess I have lost my pictures of the chestnut trees when I got my new I-pad last month and got my saved pictures from some cloud .
I hope a administrator will delete my misinformation post.I will get another picture this coming year .
Sorry for the confusion.
Thank you 

[A-z farmer]

Here is a picture of the sassafras after I milled it up.
The smell was amazing but it made a mess of the mill with all the fine brown dust everywhere.I ended up with just over 500 board feet from the three trees.This picture is when I started to mill and I did not take one after I was done milling.
Thank you everyone for the help .
Zeke

 

[Woodpecker52]

This is what the Sassy

 leaves look like 3 different shapes
.

[WDH]

The texture of the leaf surface and veins look to me like what I imagine dinosaur skin would look like. 

[YellowHammer]

Here are three pallets of 8/4 Sass going into the kiln yesterday.



 

[A-z farmer]

Very nice pallets of sassafras yellow hammer.
I have found a lot more of the sassy trees in our woods at our farms but it seems they seem to get problems with dying at 60 years of age .I have been cutting down any dead and hollow tees but they are just firewood but still smell awesome.
Thank you everyone I am learning one tree at a time .
Zeke