Thread: Another Mystery Timber - Nice Dark Heart

Originally Posted by John.G

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'.

Yes I agree, I was thinking 40 inches, ie about 100 cm .... a mature tree. But it had no dark heartwood at all and that was not uncommon I was told by cutters who cleared land.

Ian, definitely not Cassia. It was actually the first thing I asked him. I had not heard of Cascara and thought he may have been referring to Cassia which I had come across before. He knew Cassia very well because after I mentioned it to him he described it perfectly. I think his words went something like ""$hit tree Cassia, drops of yellow flowers, throws out saplings all over the place".

As for Leichardt. With respect John I would be very surprised. The trials of trying to identify species by photos (particularly taken by flash) but in real life this is quite white in the sapwood (any usually the heartwood as well I suspect). I have a few very nice pieces of Leichardt that came from Mission Beach and they are much yellower but more importantly also lighter in density than this. I think I’ll go with the tree lopper’s suggestion as he's seen more trees than I could hope to see in 10 lifetimes. Very likely is Cascara when I see the photos on the web. It was the fungal colouring that threw me off. Many thanks for all the great suggestions. Very respectful of the vast experience that taps into this forum.