Butternut - easy to mistake for walnut, eh?
Mike Schwing from Md.
>I've been trying to figure out to what species of tree this limb belonged that was delivered to my doorstep.
Was told "almost 100 years old, very large, had green ball shaped fruits every fall that opened up to look like walnuts." The owner thought it was a walnut, but the limb I have doesn't say "walnut" to me.
Bark looks like walnut, but it is an immature limb. No dark heartwood as normally found in walnuts around here. Very thin ring of sapwood followed by a light brown heartwood that takes up 80% of the thickness.
I can post a pic here later of the limb cut in half and probably even get a razor blade slice of the pore structure, but I'm thinking at this point it is probably a butternut. In which case, it can rot where it is - too much other good wood around here to mess with butternut. That doesn't mean I haven't seen nice butternut stuff here on WC, I have, I just know its not the easiest stuff to work.
Sound like butternut thus far? I'm no expert.
