Do Curled/Twisted Sticks Grow In Your Area?

[stixman]

While out searching in the woods for Curled/Twisted sticks to make into walking sticks, I got to thinking. Do Curled/Twisted sticks grow in other parts of the country or are they just growing in the southern part of the US?

I know from searching for these sticks that they tend to grow in clusters. A person might walk for a mile and not see one, then there may be 3 or 4 growing close together. Of course the sticks might not be suitable for making a walking stick, then you just have to walk on and search some more.

Last year I cut about 500-600 curlies. I think I have approximately 1,500 in storage ready to be made into walking sticks.

Take a look at the curlies in storage.

[nihilism]

I've never seen any in australia. What species of tree do the normally come from?

[stixman]

The wood type varies between several types:
Maple,Sassafras,Dogwood...

What makes the stick curle is the fact that a honey Suckle vine grows around the sticks causing the tree to deform.

Kinda cool !

[DsArt]

G`day stixman i have seen similar things in rainforest type areas before and same as,a vine is the worker (lawyer vine )is a name i seem to recall ,seems fitting ay,strangling and twisting lawyer A :freind started many years ago putting different growth stresses on walking cane palms for just this future use ,but they grow so slow that i reckon they`ll be ready when he isDanny

[Whittling]

The wood type varies between several types:
Maple,Sassafras,Dogwood...

What makes the stick curle is the fact that a honey Suckle vine grows around the sticks causing the tree to deform.

Kinda cool !

That explains a lot. You are blessed with this kind of 'raw material'. I've never carved Nth American Sassafras, but Maple and Dogwood are quite nice to carve.

As far as I know we don't have this sort of thing much in Oz, but it does exist. Unfortunately its rather hard to carve, not impossible but quite a bit harder than maple. Don't know what the species is or how fast it grows but here's two photos of stuff I found, one in Tasmania and one on Kangaroo Island in SA.

The KI one is only small. Not big enough for a walking stick but I thought it might make an interesting snake if it were mounted right. The Tassie one is a bit spindly for a stick that is any more than just decoration. I don't know if I'll ever do anything with it or not. At this point its not high on my prioriy list.