The Forestry Forum

  I was admiring a local river, (actually looking for steelhead) when I noticed a maple on the river bank that had some of it's bark knocked off and had to get closer because the wood was totaly bubbled. The "bubble" wood grain varies between 1" dia to 1/4" dia. and this is the total exposed surface. Not a burl. I though quilt only grew in the Pacific Northwest. The only quilted maple I'm familiar with is of the big leaf variety. I didn't figure the type of maple this tree is but I'm guessing red maple.
  I'm real familiar with the other figured maples like curl, birdseye, longeye, and thumbnail, but This quilt is the first I've seen or heard of in Michigan.
  Any of you other midwesterners seen this before?

I know this type of figure as (Blistered) my limited experience with this figure is that it is in your first two cuts into the log and when finished it has a 3D look to it.

To be considered quality quilted material, you would have to see something that look like rolling cellulite. (Or is that a medical condition?  :D) The blistered you see is interesting but will not reveal that rolling interlaced look of quilted.

The other guys are correct--the figure you are describing sounds like blister figure, and it is known to occur in many trees, including birches, maples, yellow-poplars and mahoganies.  In bigleaf maple, the bulges sometimes become elongated transversely and more closely crowded; this is known as quilted figure.  According Bruce Hoadley in the book "Identifying Wood", quilted figure is primarily found in bigleaf maple.