It's pretty sad, I can't tell my Ash from a hole in the ground.

[oakiemac]

Well not exactly a hole in the ground but I have a very hard time telling Ash logs from Tulip Poplar.
I went out to the log yard today and got  a nice 10' tulip poplar log to cut into siding, put it up on the mill and started squaring off the top when I noticed that it weren't no Poplar but an Ash! I wouldnt be telling the truth if I said this was the first time either. I have done this several times. By just looking at the bark on the logs I can't tell the difference. Am I just Ash ( or tulip poplar) challenged or is there a good way to tell the difference. Maybe no one else has this problem and I wouldn't be surprised. I have never seen it mentioned before.
I can tell the difference when they are standing-that is pretty easy but you put an Ash and TP log side by side and I'm at a lose.
Anyone got any ideas or should I just figure on going on the rest of my life in this sad state?

[WDH]

Oakiemac,

This is how I tell them apart.  In both, the ridges anastomotize (a form of anastomosis).  That is a fancy word for saying that the ridges on the bark run together in diamond like patterns.

1).  In ash, the bark ridges are not alway regular up the stem (however, sometimes they are).  At the bottom of the tree, the bark might be knobby, then it changes to perfect diamond shaped ridges that run together in the diamond shape.  Then back to irregular or knobby and vice versa.

The color of ash bark is more green than gray.  Also, many times there is a particular dark green lichen that loves to grow on ash bark.  You don't see it on yellow poplar.

2).  In yellow poplar (tulip poplar), the ridges alway run together very regularly in the diamond shaped pattern.

HERE IS THE BIG KICKER!  The bark ridges on poplar that run together in the diamond shape are flattened on top.  It looks like someone took a draw knife to the bark ridges and shaved off the top part of the ridge.  It is like they scraped down the whole trunk of the tree to flatten the ridges on the bark.  Also, the bark is gray and not green.  Doesn't have the green lichen growing on it either.  The bark ridges on ash are not obviously and noticeably flattened and the bark is more green than gray.

I will try to take some pics tomorrow to show what I am attempting to explain here. 

[Ron Wenrich]

I don't have any problem with the bark of the 2 species.  We have a truck driver that does, but he's color blind, so I don't know if that's a problem.  He also didn't know he was driving a green truck.   

The diamonds on an ash are usually more diamond shape, where the poplar are longer.  And, as noted above, the bark just looks sharper on the ash.  When all else fails, look at the end grain. 

[OneWithWood]

This is why I end coat my logs with different colored coatings.  I have embarrassed myself more than once by pointing out a blowdown tree that has been down for some time in the woods and mis identifying it.  This generally happens when I am talking with an experienced forester or logger 

Something else that is slightly nerve wracking is when I am riding in a vehicle and the conversation comes around to my woods.  Just about the time the other party thinks I know something about trees and loaded log truck goes by and the invariably ask - So what kind of trees are those?  and I have to admit I am not sure 

[Ron Scott]

Look for and become familiar with the "diamond shapes" of the darker ridged bark as previously stated. Once this bark pattern is recognized, an ash log should get much easier for you to identify.

[Ron Wenrich]

OWW

Reminds of a story told to me by a tree trimmer.  A friend of his was one of those guys who knew all the trees.  Seems he went to a woman's house and he talked about how he knew his trees.

The woman asked what type of tree she had in the backyard.  It stumped him.  But, he didn't admit that he didn't know.  He just told her that it was a wooden tree.   

Next time you'll know they are wooden logs.   

[oakiemac]

Thanks for the help. I went out and compared ash and poplar logs and can definately tell the difference by looking at the end of hte log. Ash has large clear growth rings (ring porous?) and Poplar seemed-well different.

Now that I have read the above, I'll go check out the diamonds in the bark.

[WDH]

I will post some pics shortly.  You are right.  Ash is ring porous and poplar is diffuse porous.

[SwampDonkey]

Our white ash has light brown color to it and white blotches.



White ash




Tulip Poplar


Are you talking about a different ash species? These are young trees, but our old ash trees look the same. I can pick them out standing in the forest like separating red straws from white straws.

[Ron Wenrich]

That's a real young poplar.  Older ones look much different.

[WDH]

To add to what SwampDonkey posted, here are some additional pictures of ash bark and yellow poplar bark.  In the first pic of ash notice how the ridges are not consistently regular.  In some areas, the ridges are very regular and run together in a diamond pattern.  In other areas, the pattern breaks and the bark is more blocky and less regularly ridged.  This tendency of ash to have the ridge pattern change in sections up the tree is diagnostic.  This is green ash.



The color is a brown to green-brown.  Also notice the lichen that loves to grow on ash bark.



Here is another pic of ash showing the bark with obvious patches of the lichen.



Here is yellow poplar bark.  The color is whitish gray to bluish gray.  Also, notice the ridges are noticeably flattened on the top of the ridge, like someone scraped them flat with a draw knife or spokeshave.



Another pic showing the flattened ridges.



To me, the ridge patterns are distinctly different even though both tend to form diamond shapes as the ridges run together.  The pattern in poplar is always perfectly regular.  Not so in ash.  The color is different, and ash will invariably have the lichen somewhere on the stem. 

[SwampDonkey]

I guess a person can't make a general statement that learning trees by other means is better than bark. Although, I am tempted to say it. But, I know that white ash can have 9 leave petioles, instead of the normal 7. They can turn yellow in the fall as well as mahogany color. They can have almost no heart or a lot of heartwood. Bark can be brown or greyish. Can be loaded with lichen or almost clean.

Fun stuff. 

[WDH]

What I have found is that a person cannot rely on one thing alone.  You have to put several pieces of the puzzle together to get a better picture.  Sometimes bark alone will do the job, sometimes you need a leaf or a fruit or a petiole or a.............well, you get the picture.  The most important thing is to look at the whole picture then you can start seeing the pieces.  The best approach is to look, then look again, then look again.  After a while, it starts to make sense......................

[Ron Wenrich]

When I took dendro in college, we were given the bark, branching pattern and leaves.  Everything worked fine until the end of October - leaf drop.  So, I relied on bark and branching patterns only and got an A.

I figured I'd do OK with forestry, then came the reality check on my first job.  I was a log scaler.  No branching pattern, only end cuts and bark.  I learned real quick how to tell the difference between ash, poplar and walnut (which looks similar).

Now that I'm sawing, I don't even have the bark.  End cuts only.  I can still tell the difference, just the way a log is formed.  Chestnut oak is different from white oak.  Ash and poplar don't look the same, even if the bark is removed. 

And, you can't tell ash due to the lichen formation.  It may only be there on ash, but not all ash has lichen.  Most of our ash logs are lichen free.

[WDH]

With the wide distribution of ash, I suppose the lichen thing is climate based.  Maybe more of a southern thing than a northern thing.  In our local areas, we get used to seeing trees a certain way.  If you travel to another region, they can look different in some respects.  Makes it a challenge.  The important thing is to get to the woods a lot and see many different specimens.  Then, you get comfortable with the variability within a species.

[Phorester]

WDH pretty well describes the differences I see between ash and poplar in my neck of the woods.

There are regional differnces in trees, though.  When I first moved from the coastal plain of VA to the mountains, I had a hard time identifying white oak.  It just didn't look the same here as it  did in my former work area.

I had a local Westvaco Forester tell me that when he went from this area to western WV to help on a few marking jobs, he started out calling black cherry as black locust. Here, black locust grows tall and straight, cherry grows crooked.  Out there it was reversed. Due to the different growth rates from here to there, the locust bark was smoother out there and looked from a distance more like cherry to him.

[SwampDonkey]

For the most part the ash species in my area that has the lichen is black ash. It has that leavey type lichen on it just like our red maple does. I think (opinion here) this is because of the higher humidity (microclimate) on low wet ground.



I've seen similar lichens come in on trays of seedlings. It seems to take root on the silicon meal they put on top of the plug before seeding it.

Ditto to the cherry as well. The bark looks like peeling birch in my area and some areas it's normal cherry bark.

[Ron Wenrich]

There's also vast differences in quality from one area to another.  Bibbyman was telling me how black oak is really low quality, and we sell black oak for veneer.

I also saw the same differences in between scarlet oak in my area vs scarlet oak in western areas.  Better quality in the west.

[WDH]

Like Ron say, scarlet oak can be a very high quality tree.  Here is my area, it is usually poorer quality and more limby than some of the other upland oaks.  However, I have seen some fine specimens.  In fact, the Michigan champion is a very large one, scoring 392 points. 

[Phorester]

Back to the original question, one of you camera gurus need to take a picture of a hole in the ground so Okiemac can tell the difference between that and ash.