Looking for a species

[jim king]

I have a freind in NY that would like to buy logs that look like this and it is not legal to export raw logs of any type from here.  Is there any tree similar in the swamps in the south of the US ??   Could they be harvested ?

[Tom]

That looks like bald cypress.   The buttress will grow like that sometimes.  Usually there is a trunk section in the middle and then the cross-cut will show the root shoulders attaching to it.   I've seldom seen any design that complicated.   

Bald Cypress has a wood that looks a bit like pine but it is light and more rot resistant as it ages.  It is quite heavy when harvested and gives up its water slowly.

The color would be a light tan sap wood and a darker heartwood. The heartwood will be close to the same color as sapwood in the white cypress but the red cypress will  a reddish brown.   It is fairly soft but machines pretty good.

[jim king]

Tom:
Here are a couple more photos.  I used it for table bases but some people use it as timberframe matl as my friend wants to do and he wants complete logs.  Do these look like the wood you are describing ?

Jim

[Tom]

Similar, but not as convoluted.  Redwood also provides irregular edged cross-sections too.  I don't know of anything in North America that produces a log such as you display.

Here are some links that I pulled off of Google images when I did a search for Cypress Table.

http://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/trees/baldcypress/deep_south/
http://www.globalwoodsource.com/golden_gate_cypress_slabs
http://www.crookedcreekantlerart.com/Elk-Antler-End-Table-with-Cypress-Slab-Top_p_785.html
http://www.thomsonrusticfurnishings.com/tables.html
http://attinellofurniture.com/workshop.htm
http://attinellofurniture.com/workshop.htm

[caveman]

the base reminds me a bit of a banyan tree.  Caveman

[timerover51]

Jim,  do you have any contacts in Brazil, or some of the smaller former colonies on the north coast of South America?  I assume that logs like that are coming from the Peru lowlands bordering Peru?

[jim king]

Yes, I forwarded the information on Guyana where it is still legal to export logs to my friend today.   They have the same species as we do as they are 3 or 4 degrees north of the Equator and we are 4 south.  He should get what he needs there.

[timerover51]

Guyana is one of the countries I was thinking of.