counting trees

[SwampDonkey]

Nuts? On a dead tree? Interesting onto itself. The hickory does sound plausible.

[mountaineer]

not on but around. in the vicinity. close enough for an idiot such as myself to go hmm .....

[WDH]

My first thought was mulberry, but the sapwood is a little too wide.  Hickory fits, especially the scaly form of pignut.  If those round nuts came from that tree, then the mystery is solved.  However, the spalting indicates that the tree has been dead a good while, so those nuts may be a red herring.

[OneWithWood]

I find mounds of acorns under maples without an oak anywhere close.  Our furry little friends and winged ones have a habbit of transporting nuts all over the place so it would be unwise to assume the nuts are from the nearest tree.

[SwampDonkey]

Ditto to the last two posts, I just didn't know how the phrase it, concerning the location of those nuts. 

[Dodgy Loner]

You can't be sure the nuts are from the right tree, but you also can't be sure that they're not.  I had the hardest time trying to get my students to be observant enough to look around on the ground for clues during dendrology labs, until the leaves fell off and they had little choice.  All possible avenues should be investigated, even if they turn out to be dead ends .

One dirty little trick I would pull occasionally was to quiz the students on a dead tree with no leaves or buds.  All they had to go by was the bark and the form.  The more observant students would always notice that there was a live specimen of the same species very close by, whose leaves and twigs could be easily observed .

[mountaineer]

hey dodgy you might want to make another post real quick like. look what number you're on

[beenthere]

Dodgy Loner
Your "dirty little trick" reminds me of forestry summer camp....in New Mexico...dry, 'park-like' ponderosa pine stand, and our Prof was on a soils class.
Object was to pair up, dig a soil pit about 2' deep, and use the knowledge gained from his teachings to classify the soil.
My partner and I dug our pit, filled out the field notes and figured we were done. He had to relieve himself so used the pit.

Didn't know the prof was going to cruise around among the pits and double check our work. When he got to our pit, he said "gather around boys, and come over here. As you can see the water table is up (I think there were still signs of bubbles in the bottom ) in this area, and the dark, damp soil is indicitave of that" (as he reached into the bottom of the pit and brought out a handful of mud, squeezing it in a ball like a farmer in his newly plowed ground. My partner and I were behind the nearest ponderosa laughing so hard our sides were splitting. Poor prof was clueless, but the other guys were catching on pretty fast.   

[Dodgy Loner]

 

(mountaineer - problem solved )

[Jeff]

 

[mountaineer]

hey dodgy are you teaching at uga? is it for your masters? (i see it says you are 24)

[mountaineer]

i have found several more dead mystery trees to cut up. when i split the wood it cracks easily and splits well but it tends to hold on to each other with the strings of wood. has a sour smell as well. as promised i will take pics as soon as they bud and i can get a good shot.

[SwampDonkey]

An unofficial forestry term comes to mind. pith maple aka red maple with spalt or heart rot, it's a local term I here a lot from firewood guys and irate home owners who thought they were getting rock maple.  The but log with curl can be twisty stuff to split.

[mountaineer]

here are three pics. one is of nuts directly under the mystery tree. another is a pic of the tree buds, (though not very close) and the other is three of the trees together. please don't shoot the deer in the pic cause thats my dog. 

[SwampDonkey]

Were the buds reddish, rounded to a tip and canted to one side? Get out your tree climbing gear.

[WDH]

Like I said, hickory  .

[Dodgy Loner]

hey dodgy are you teaching at uga? is it for your masters? (i see it says you are 24)

I taught a dendrology lab at UGA for three years.  Finished my Masters in December, so now I have a real job ( ...hmmm, I can't decide which emoticon is appropriate ).

The nuts are definitely pignut, and the coarseness of the branches also suggests hickory.  Looks like WDH called it!

[SwampDonkey]

Yip, he did.

But, I think there is more than one dead tree species.

[mountaineer]

so pignut hickory it is. what possibly killed them? seems there are a few dead. i do have several shagbarks on the property. they don't seem to be anything alike. thx yall