Purchasing black cherry

[Furby]

There was a choke cherry log at the school by my Grandma's a few years back when they cleared out the woods between the two schools.
I tried to get it and a couple others, but I was never able to get ahold of the person that could let me have them.
The choke cherry was 24"+ at BH, but the first branch was not more then a foot or so above that.
It was as Kelvin said, a scrub type tree and had been growing near a stream.

[SwampDonkey]

The biggest I seen, and these were growing on a rich site beside a stream and down hill of a field that probably had all kinds of fertilizer run off over the years, was 4 inched on the stump and maybe  12 feet tall. Most I see are about 6 feet tall and growing in thickets like red osier dogwoods and never get no taller than 8 feet maybe. And about 3 inches on the stump, most around an inch.

Your chokecherry have to be a different species than ours. It can't be the latitude we are at because if that were the case the maple trees would be no bigger than lilac bushes.

I've been consulting several references and they say 8" and 30 feet are the largest recorded chokecherries. Sounds like you may have an introduced cherry like sweet cherry or sour cherry, which have commonly escaped into the wild.

[Sparty]

I don't live too far from kelvin and we get pin cherries that max out  at about 14 inches or so...how did the lumber look? Anything like black cherry?  I've got a whole bunch of nice straight pin cherry, but never thought it would be worth sawing.

[SwampDonkey]

Oh my gosh Sparty!!! I've gave some away to an old timer that made a few trinkets from it. As you say 8-14" is about max. Try some, can't hurt.  It looks similar the black cherry, but more sap. It will spoil quick so cut, saw and stack out of the weather. It's 'designed' to grow fast and rot quick. It'll peel like an onion if it spoils.

[Sparty]

Well, I had to look this one up... my guide says choke cherries mature at about 6" diameter and 20' high, Which means a 12 incher probably isn't unheard of.  It looks like a relatively smooth background with lots of small to medium sized scabby scales.  It looks much different than the pin cherries that like swampdonky shows.  The pin cherries have scales that go around the tree like a horizontal stripe whereas the choke cherry scales are more randomly placed.  We also get sour and sweet cherries growing in certain woodlots.

"how can you tell black cherry from the other cherries?"

Maybe one of the foresters can explain it better, but in my experience, black cherry has much deeper furroughs and scales than the other cherries.  In general, if it is 16" diameter or larger its probably black cherry.

[SwampDonkey]

Which guide Sparty? I use Peterson's, Textbook of Dendrology and Native Trees of Canada. Choke cherries here have no scales on the bark except what we call lenticels. The bark is real dark, almost black with a gray cast. They have cherries here when they are barely any taller than a raspberry cane. The stem usually has so many branches or so crooked you'd never consider it for much more than a walking stick. The size limits I see it up to 8" and 30 feet in Peterson's. That's not maturity, that's end of life.

They are the most hardy cherry on the continent and about the only shrub a hare doesn't chew the bark off of.

[rebocardo]

> I don't know how to ask ahead of time if they really are intending on selling me the logs

Depends on how much you want them. Myself, my estimates are usually free if I can work it into my travel. Otherwise I charge them $25 for any estimate and if it is a ways away, I tell them what I would probably charge, that I am showing up with my equipment, and I expect to start working once I get there.

[SwampDonkey]

Kelvin, Furb and Sparty, I'm just trying to fish more info out of ya about the choke cherries.


Back to black cherry.

[Sparty]

Swampdonkey-
I am using  Audubon's guide  to eastern north american trees.  The bark description there reads: Brown or gray smooth or becoming scaly.  That matches my limited experiance with them.  They look like they have a smooth background with small/medium scales.  Most of the ones I have seen were in fence rows not in bushy groups.  We even had one big enough to put a ladder stand in and hunt from.  Most of the area were I live is not condusive to the type of choke cherry shrubs that you have.  The landscape is squares of farmland checkered with 40-60 year old woodlots.  Not alot of scrubland for the choke cherries.

[Furby]

I know what Black Cherry looks like, we have it all over around here and I see it every day.
The log I was talking about may not have been a Choke Cherry, and I never saw any leaves from it.
I'm 99.9% sure that log was NOT Black Cherry.

Interesting, a search on Cherry Birch brings up Betula lenta L. AKA Sweet Birch and shows the native range not covering MI.
But a search on Black Birch brings up Sweet Birch (Betula lenta) and shows it in Southern MI.

I have some up at the lake that I've never been sure about. Always thought they were Black Cherry until some posts on here a couple years ago on Black Birch. They sure seem to fit Black Birch better.
SD, would you be able to tell the difference between Black Birch and Black Cherry if I could get an end grain scan?

[WDH]

Furby, if you smash or scrap the bark off of a sweet birch twig, you will be rewarded with an overwhelming wintergreen  smell.  Like smelling an open can of Skoal .  If you get close enough to the trees to do an end-grain scan, try the smell test.  The bark of these two is distinctly different as well. 

Also, the leaves on sweet birch come off the twig in twin pairs from the same node.  Not so in black cherry where each node has a single leaf.

Leaf pic of sweet birch.  In the "Summer Foliage" section of the site, click on the thumnail of the leaves on the far right to see the paired leaves.
 
http://www.hort.uconn.edu/Plants/b/betlen/betlen1.html

[Furby]

Well I have a couple of small logs from one of the trees up at the lake, laying next to the mill right now.
They've been there about a year and a half, so I figure the smell is gone.
I don't remember smelling it while cutting them though.

In order for one to compare a smell to an open can of Skoal, one would need to know what an open can of Skoal smells like eh?

[WDH]

Point well taken.  Take my word on it and save yourself $5.00 .

Yep, the smell will most surely be gone.

[Furby]

I don't have $5, so I won't bother.
Was just looking at your link and also looked at the Black Cherry at that link.
I simply can't say from memory as I'm thinking we might have both up there.
I know the pics they show of both trees have a wide range of bark types/looks.

Guess I'll have to wait until next summer and get some branches.

[SwampDonkey]

Yup, but it might be easier for you to do it on your end. Just use a utility knife to get a smooth surface on the end grain and wet it.

The birch has larger pores than the largest wood rays and the wood rays you won't see without a lens. The pores are tiny white dots between the wood rays. There are similar sized pores as the rays but you won't see them with the naked eye too well. Sometimes the growth rings are hardly visible without a lens. I have a shot of the yellow birch end grain in the end grain thread. It's going to be the same as the black birch, besides color of wood. Wood Tech says the birches cannot be separated by anatomy.

In the cherry you don't need a hand lens to see the wood rays. In black cherry the heart is pinkish, not gonna be in the birch, well I'm lying  sometimes we get pink heart in yellow birch, not sure if you get it in black birch, so we better ignore that tip. The wood rays are going to be the slam dunk.

Yeah I know you know was black cherry is.

Your black birch/cherry birch is in Michigan if it's in southern Ontario, which it is but rare. In school we were told black birch was the common name we were to use (or be docked points  ) for proper common name, but native trees of Canada call it cherry birch. I had that argument once in Va with my friend. It's the same with the Manitoba maple/boxelder when I'm looking at one in the same here in the yard and along the river valley and being told we don't have it here.  In that case it's invasive and only native to the Prairies as i recall. Same with burr oak, not listed here, but I can go to the woods and put my bare hands on wild burr oak trees. 

[WDH]

In that case it's invasive and only native to the Prairies as i recall. Same with burr oak, not listed here, but I can go to the woods and put my bare hands on wild burr oak trees. 

Yep, just because it ain't native.................Well, Yankees Northerners ain't native to these parts, but I can put my bare hands on them as well.  They might not kindly cotton to that , though .

[SwampDonkey]

What did you find out Furb?

[SwampDonkey]

I see at the Forestry Canada Seed Bank here in Fredericton, they have some cherry birch in storage which was collected in St Catherines (Port Dalhousie), Ontario in 1999.

lat: 43.10 long: 79.10

[Furby]

Had a funeral to attend today, so I didn't get a log dug out of the snow.
I'll get back to you with a scan as I'm not sure I'd be able to see what you were describing.

[SwampDonkey]

Be sure and use the highest resolution (1200 DPI or more?) of the scanner and in preview, use the size gadgets to select an area covering an inch (or slightly bigger) square. That will blow it up big (zoom).

The picture I have of the cherry end grain isn't that great, too rough. But, you can see the rays. When I say the pores (white dots) on the birch are between the rays. Well take my word for it, you wont see the rays without magnification. But anyway, rays and pores don't over lap, I mean a ray doesn't cut a pore in half.