Wood ID

[SparkHawk]

Hi guys. Sorry if you're sick of wood ID posts but I'm really stumped as to what I've got here.
I was driving along an old byway with a friend the other day and noticed a whole load of small / medium sized logs at the side of the road which had been cut down to clear the path. I took some of them home with me to use for some projects but I've no idea what species of wood they are, I think I have three separate types.

The wood in the middle is definitely the softest of the three, you can't see it very well in the picture but the bark is covered in small diamond shapes. My mate said this wood might be some type of poplar but I'm not sure

The one on the right is by far the hardest and heaviest, really tough, deep fissured bark and it smells like honeydew melons when cut so I think it's possibly fruit wood of some description? I took the bark off it today to use it for something which was a nightmare and found that it has quite a few areas of pink pippy spots, almost like small sections of burr, I've never seen this before and thought it was really interesting.

Hopefully somebody has some kind of clue as to what wood these are. I can take some more pictures tomorrow if it's required. Thanks.

 

[Bm101]

Near water?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

No, on a garden wall.

 

[MikeG.]

.........I was driving along an old byway with a friend the other day and noticed a whole load of small / medium sized logs at the side of the road which had been cut down to clear the path. I took some of them home with me..........

You know that they belong to someone, and that what you have done is actually a crime unless you had the landowner's permission?

 

[banjerbill]

.........I was driving along an old byway with a friend the other day and noticed a whole load of small / medium sized logs at the side of the road which had been cut down to clear the path. I took some of them home with me..........

You know that they belong to someone, and that what you have done is actually a crime unless you had the landowner's permission?[/quote]

So is driving with a friend at the moment. This bloke just doesn't care!

Bill

 

[SparkHawk]

.........I was driving along an old byway with a friend the other day and noticed a whole load of small / medium sized logs at the side of the road which had been cut down to clear the path. I took some of them home with me..........

You know that they belong to someone, and that what you have done is actually a crime unless you had the landowner's permission?

I didn't take them from private land, like I said, it was along a public byway which goes through a forest which you're legally allowed to maintain if there are trees or branches blocking the road. I didn't cut them down either, somebody else did and just left them there at the side of the path, if they wanted them they would have taken them instead of leaving them there for days, possibly weeks. I don't think I'm doing any harm by taking wood which I'm allowed to take and has basically just been left there to rot.

As for driving with a friend, yeah, you got me. It's irresponsible, I know, but we both live in rural villages where there have been no symptoms of the virus, neither of us have ever shown symptoms, nor anybody around us. I don't think going out once with a friend for an hour over the course of the entire lockdown (which is easing now, anyway) is really that big of a deal.

I didn't find the wood near water as far as I know, the two on the left were found further into the forest and the one on the right was along a clearer sort of hedgerow area.

 

[guineafowl21]

Just a vague impression, but the bark of the two on the left remind me of willow/sallow, and the red staining of the one on the right suggests alder.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

.........I was driving along an old byway with a friend the other day and noticed a whole load of small / medium sized logs at the side of the road which had been cut down to clear the path. I took some of them home with me..........

You know that they belong to someone, and that what you have done is actually a crime unless you had the landowner's permission?

I didn't take them from private land, like I said, it was along a public byway which goes through a forest which you're legally allowed to maintain if there are trees or branches blocking the road. I didn't cut them down either, somebody else did and just left them there at the side of the path, if they wanted them they would have taken them instead of leaving them there for days, possibly weeks. I don't think I'm doing any harm by taking wood which I'm allowed to take and has basically just been left there to rot.

As for driving with a friend, yeah, you got me. It's irresponsible, I know, but we both live in rural villages where there have been no symptoms of the virus, neither of us have ever shown symptoms, nor anybody around us. I don't think going out once with a friend for an hour over the course of the entire lockdown (which is easing now, anyway) is really that big of a deal.

I didn't find the wood near water as far as I know, the two on the left were found further into the forest and the one on the right was along a clearer sort of hedgerow area.

As a general rule, public footpaths and public byways exist on private land. The wood legally belongs to the tree owner - again, generally not "the public". Landowners often leave cut wood - to be picked up later or for wildlife e.g. 'bug hotel'. I'd be annoyed if I saw you and your mate doing this and we'd have a real problem if everyone behaved the same way. Rant over ...

 

[Bm101]

Just a vague impression, but the bark of the two on the left remind me of willow/sallow, and the red staining of the one on the right suggests alder.

Hence my rather vague question about proximity to water Phil! \/ There's hundreds growing near the wivers and lakes round here. I'm guessing that's alder, all the same tree.
Were there any of these?

 

[MikeG.]

.........I was driving along an old byway with a friend the other day and noticed a whole load of small / medium sized logs at the side of the road which had been cut down to clear the path. I took some of them home with me..........

You know that they belong to someone, and that what you have done is actually a crime unless you had the landowner's permission?

I didn't take them from private land, like I said, it was along a public byway which goes through a forest which you're legally allowed to maintain if there are trees or branches blocking the road........

I don't want to keep banging on about this, but this is irrelevant. Just as you can cut branches off from a neighbour's tree where it overhangs your boundary, the branch remains theirs and you have to return it to their side of the boundary. That wood (forest?! In Essex? :lol: ) is either privately owned, or owned by the Crown and managed by a public body such as the forestry commission. All trees stand on land that is owned by someone. There is no way you had any right to take that timber.

 

[Trevanion]

Lighten up Mike :lol:

 

[guineafowl21]

Yes, I think technically Mike and others are right that taking the wood was wrong. On the other hand, worse things happen at sea. Taking a few weed-wood logs cleared from a byway is akin, in my mind, to pocketing a few pencils from Screwfix, or swiping a hotel bathrobe. Crimes that are governed by an irregular verb:

I ‘acquire’
You pinch
He/She steals :shock:

Anyway, it looks like they could all be alder. I’ve not used that for anything but firewood, but if there is any willow in there, even goat willow, it can make a surprisingly good large tool handle. I once rived a slightly curved GW log green and fitted a spike to the end, to make a log pick or pickaroon. It gets heavy use but appears unbreakable, because there’s no sawn grain.

 

[Suffolkboy]

That's all willow.

Mike is right. You shouldn't have taken it.

If it's a large forest in Essex my guess is it is owned by the City of London.

Wood theft happens all the time and I have known it to be enforced.

That could have been left to dry to be sold as biomass, more likely though it was left because it's not a lot of good for anything else. What it is good for is deadwood habitat. When I was cutting we would frequently leave small piles of logs for invertebrates etc. Frustrating when you have gone to the effort of cutting and stacking something for the benefit of wildlife and some light fingered scrote pinches it.

Enjoy your wood.