Thread: Ancient & Prehistoric Wood

Thanks Len,

me too it looks like a Euc of some sort. Any info you can provide will be helpful. Anything I find I will share with you.
PM coming shortly.

Regards & thanks Euge

Here's that pepper grinder I made from some of my bog Redgum Euge

BRG Grinder.jpg BRG Grinder Detail.jpg

edit: Brightened up photos to show grain, actually very black

Very Nice Neil!!

I like that some red-brown shows through the mostly black wood. Nicely done

Some nice pics of turned bog NZ kauri would also be nice.

Euge

I picked up a slab of ancient redgum off another forumite a couple of years or so back, and only recently cut part of it for a project. It was quite amazing to cut, the waste is like gritty powder. I worked out pretty quickly to wear a face mask as it was so fine.

Wood and Tree lovers will have likely have heard of Bristlecone Pine, possibly the longest living tree of all with some specimens dated at around 7,000 years old. The botanical name Pinus longaevea refers to its ability to grow to such great ages. They live in tough conditions with little competition, in alkaline lime / dolomite rocky soils at high elevations where summer and the growing season is short. The regions where they grow are now largely in national parks and highly protected. I have always wondered ... what is the wood is like?

This ancient log is about 150 mm in diam across its longest width. It shows the ice blasted face which dies and all the growth is on the other (downwind) side. Ie half the tree is dead. This log started growing around in the year 1550 and grew until 2000 (450 years) before somehow it broke it off. This was from dating of the tree rings with patterns that reflect know known climatic events and periods (a dating method called dendrochronology).
Here is portion of a fallen limb that shows rings 3-4 per mm wide, some much less where there was little or no growth.. tough years, but then it is a tough life.

Brist Pine.jpg


Above: Ice blasted surface of a Bristlecone Pine log

Bris Pine 2.jpg

Edit: Above and below image show a freshly cut surface to provide a friend the offcut who seemed eager to study the wood & do some dating tests and compare the ring width against published material. Hence it hasn't had a chance to darken like the much larger polished slab below

Bris Pin 3.jpg


The wood is very resinous. Over the years the resin in the wood (therefore the wood) can turn a purple brown on exposure to air and light. Even the cones which take 3 years t mature drip with resin and turn a purple brown when they mature, A cross section (below) of a polished slab used for research purposes, representing many thousands of years of growth (I can’t recall how many) and is now quite purple-brown and dark. Who would guess this was a pine?

Bris Pine 4.jpg

jaw dropping - thank you thank you thank you for the lessons !

Thanks Poundy,

Its obvious that I like a chance to SHARE what I've found from my studies of woods with other wood lovers. Certainly, not here to give "lessons" but to share my discoveries and views on the nature of properties of woody shrubs and trees. (I do this mostly through the magazine called World of Wood, journal of the IWCS)
Of course I am NOT always right in my views and invite commentary, correction or contributions on the same subject from others.

Euge

To keep this going ... I found this cross section provided by a friend a few years ago (an offcut) of ALERCE (Fitzroya cupressoides) from Chile I believe, now a highly protected slow growing softwood tree growing in National Parks. The tall trees produce a fine durable wood, highly desired and off course over exploited. Now protected by CITES. I bought a bit of 4" x 2" from Adams, just before the ban on imports were imposed.

In colour it looks a bit like old growth Douglas Fir, maybe more a pink.

This section is about 8" x 2" (from memory) so the 775 years counted by my friend from near pith to the corner is a beautiful show of slow growth. The tree may have been 2X - 3X that going by the ring diameter

Old Alerce.jpg