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19th May 2015, 08:24 AM #1SENIOR MEMBER
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Another Mystery Timber - Nice Dark Heart
Sorry to do this again but this one has me stumped (no pun intended). I picked this up from my local tree lopper the other day (SE Qld). Relatively dense and lovely dark heart. He called it Cascara but I’ve had a look on the web and according to google Cascara looks nothing like this. The piece in the photo is around 400mm diameter so it would have been a decent tree. Haven’t turned any yet but I should think it will turn up quite nice going by how it cut on the chain saw. Photo of the bark also included. I also picked up some nice pieces of Red Cedar, also shown, that came out of a local park. Amazing how pink it is when freshly cut. The piece here is also around 400 diameter and should yield a couple of nice bowls. Amazing how much it darkens as it dries.
Any ideas on the species with the dark heart?
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19th May 2015, 11:59 AM #2
Blackbean - Castanospermum australe
Hit it with the Boron fast, the bugs love itNeil____________________________________________Every day presents an opportunity to learn something new
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19th May 2015, 01:16 PM #3SENIOR MEMBER
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Maybe
Hmmmm.....possible. Heartwood certainly looks like it but the bark looks far too rough in comparison to any blackbean that I've seen. This has been cut for 4 months and nothing has touched the sapwood. Blackbean also tends to split on drying and this appears very stable to date. Any other thoughts?
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19th May 2015, 02:38 PM #4
Yeh you are right, bark does look wrong for Blackbean. Typical, I thought of Blackbean from the timber and looked up bark on Google images, but not all images are of Blackbean . The one I saw was of Coffeetree (Gymnocladus dioicus) that is possibly another option
Neil____________________________________________Every day presents an opportunity to learn something new
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19th May 2015, 04:56 PM #5Senior Member
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Almost looks like some Black locust I found a while back.
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19th May 2015, 09:50 PM #6GOLD MEMBER
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Black bean will have a distinctive smell of cucumber to the freshly exposed sapwood/ inner bark. The bark and yellowish tint make me think Leichardt: I've seen it get that darker ring internally before, but it will usually fade as it oxidizes.
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19th May 2015, 10:05 PM #7
Hmmmmm
From here in WA, it looks a little like Olive
Willy
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19th May 2015, 10:07 PM #8
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20th May 2015, 09:03 PM #9Intermediate Member
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The dark heart is the tree responding to a wood decay fungi. Note the dark edges ignoring the annular growth rings. The fungal hyphae are establishing a presence as far as possible in an ongoing battle with the tree's CODIT defence system - the tree has laid down chemical defences in the cells at the edge of the dark area. Each time the barrier is broken it seems to fall back and start a new barrier line. The edge of the dark area being the current battle.
The fungus may not 'want' to consume the heartwood until a later time. Occupying new territory gives it options later on perhaps when more resources are available (water nutrients oxygen? etc).
Sometimes a fungal fruiting body may be present possibly at the base of the tree but not always. Phelinus and Ganoderma are fungal genera capable of this type of invasion. I'd think it was a soft-rot fungi in an early stage of invasion but happy to see this idea improved upon.
Compare the growth rings with tree that do have a dark heart like Eucaluptus raveretiana. I spied a perfect example of the dark heartwood today in a simple log seat at the local chainsaw shop, darkness +/- aligned within growth rings. I can a maybe get a pic of this tomorrow if I haven't killed the conversation. Fungal attack has a lot more involvement in timber colouration than the conversations here seem to discuss. This is a good thing, adding unique feature without loss of structural integrity.
Red
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20th May 2015, 10:54 PM #10SENIOR MEMBER
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Fungal colour?
Thanks Red. That’s really insightful. Reflecting back on thephoto and noting how the colour is rather random in it’s border it makes a lotof sense. Maybe it is cascara after all and the fungal stain has thrown me offtrack completely. The heart is definitely solid and not punky in any way somaybe the fungal infestation is in its infancy as you also point out. I haven’t turned any yet but it may be reallypretty stuff. I might even go back and grab some more. After I took this photoI painted the end grain with acrylic paint and placed it under a tree in a cooldamp spot to slow down the drying process and hopefully keep it moist. I wonderwhat the acrylic paint will do to the fungal organisms. If the acrylic paintstarves them of oxygen I guess their days are numbered. If I get some more perhaps I should leave the end grain unsealed to allow the fungus to keep doing it's thing while watching how it progresses to ensure I intervene before it consumes the heartwood?
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21st May 2015, 01:33 AM #11GOLD MEMBER
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Coloured Heartwood Formation & Fungi
.... Fungal attack has a lot more involvement in timber colouration than the conversations here seem to discuss. This is a good thing, adding unique feature without loss of structural integrity.
Red
Before I diverge, the heartwood shown in the unknown log looks rather like WILGA, scrub wilga (Geijera salicicfolia) with a greenish heartwood, induced by fungal attack I believe. The dryland species G. parviflora is also capable of forming such a green heartwood. BUT their bark is not as shown from my recollections, so I am unsure of this identity.
Back to Black Bean, I have heard that some mature healthy black bean trees have (ie develop) NO dark heartwood! In fact have seen a mature one cut >40 cm diam and it was ALL white wood. This aroused my interest in the impact of fungi on coloured heartwood formation. Some cause or induce a defensive response from the plant making chemicals (alleopathic response/ stress induced metabolites) which may slow stop or confine the fungus to the dead (heart)wood and not the outer growing cambium. Some of these chemicals cause colourful and / or fragrant woods (due to the chemicals prduced by the plant, not the fungus). Some plants produce toxins as a reactive response to fungal attack. One can often seen how a broken branch of other damage allows fungal entry and colured heartwood formation. Wood millers / cutters notice these things.
Many Diospyros species (Ebony-producing trees) don’t produce a black heartwood either UNLESS their cambium is damaged. Hence, these trees historically valued only for their black wood, were beaten with sticks to damage them, just to ensure that black wood was formed during their growth. Aquliaria is an other genus that produces valuable fragrant infected heartwood in tropical conditions and its growth and oily heartwood formation has been commercialised .
I have seen such fungal hyphae in pockets inside logs of Geijera, in Alectryon, Atalaya, Alphitonia & Diospyros species, growing in wet and even very dry conditions.
Interestingly the black fungus in cool climate Nothofagus (myrtle) seems to follow the almost invisible medullary rays affecting the heartwood with black bands '(tiger' myrtle). In other species, like Nth Amer. Maple (Acer sp.), fungal 'spalting' produces lovely dark patterns, formed when such fungal attack follows lines of sweetness (starch / sugar etc in the wood) . And, we are all aware of the appeal of blackheart Sasafras from Tas. WA old growth Jarrah often shows dark streaks too.
A subject worthy of separate thread, which I will start and invite comment from all members.
Euge
edited: to add some extra genera, clarify points and make some typo corrections.
I have also started a new thread on fungal affects on heartwood colour, odour and appearance
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21st May 2015, 11:32 PM #12GOLD MEMBER
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A 40 cm diameter Black bean is a sapling... that juvenile it hasn't yet got any heartwood. Hence it has no colour. Mature Blackbeans in the harvestable size bracket would be in the range from say 90 to 150 cm DBH... much smaller then 90 and they're all sap and heartshake, much over 150 and they make good culverts. Just sayin'.
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21st May 2015, 11:42 PM #13GOLD MEMBER
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It's been bugging me... I keep coming back to look at that picture because its something I've seen before kinda thing. Let us know what it does - if it fades to orange/yellow I'd still bet on Leichardt.
But...
is that dark heart more greys then brown/black??? ( Yah, i need better glasses) If so, and it fades with oxidisation back to a red/yellow, I'd be inclined to think Damson. Bark is right in either case. Damson ( native damson, not the imported plum species) is a nice timber, F14, good to work, little known and much under-rated IMHO.
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22nd May 2015, 11:45 AM #14
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22nd May 2015, 02:52 PM #15GOLD MEMBER
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Leichardt tree (Nauclea orientalis). Bark is right for the job, sapwood is pretty much indistiunguishable from heartwood, true wood should be a creamy yellow to bright lemon yellow colour, and it will get a fungal thing like Red is talking about in the heart that runs from red brown to brilliant orange. Unfortunately the fungal thingy fades back to an off grey brown - and I say unfortunate because when you cut one open and get that initial bright orange on a bright yellow background it can be spectacularly pretty.
Damson (Terminalia sericocarpa) would be another candidate. Again the bark is right - its hard to distinguish from Leichardt by bark alone. Sapwood indistiguishable from heartwood, heartwood is a pale yellow brown through to yellow - and on cutting it often looks as though the wood is a chiffon yelllow kind of colour with lemon yellow blemishes in patches. Heartwood gets a darkish brown to smokey grey fungal staining which fades on oxidisation to a grey colour... although when you wet it down it looks reddish orange.
Both these species are lyctid susceptible but as a general rule the borers won't eat them if they can find anything at all else to munch on. Both of them like wet feet: they tend to grow together on the margins of swamps and riverbanks etc. Damson gets planted as an ornamental at times as the fruit is a bush tucker, though personally I'd rather let the cassowaries eat the sour tasting...
Pictures of damson wood (not showing the fungal stain):
https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...ghlight=damson
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