Another wood identification

[dickm]

A query was raised as to whether walnut would grow here, but we used to collect walnuts for pickling off a large tree at Blairgowrie which is 50 miles north of Edinburgh.

That's interesting. Although given all the old orchards around the Carse of Gowrie, maybe walnuts in Blairgowrie isn't so surprising. I used to work with a guy who had a walnut plantation in Essex, and he reckoned he was on the northern limit for commercial walnut production. While we lived near Milton Keynes, I had a walnut in the garden that produced fairly regularly, but not reliably every year.

Maybe if climate change goes on I'll reconsider not planting a walnut up here in Scotland's cold shoulder!

 

[OldWood]

Patrick Baxter of Lanarkshire Hardwoods didn't hesitate - elm. I queried the white sapwood and he's seen that in a number of elms in the east of Scotland area and considers it a local characteristic. Right pineappled off he was that he didn't get a chance to extract it and was hopeful from the fact that the branch wood has been left that has gone for timber rather than logs..

Rather curiously this was a mature tree and yet had not been infected by the beetle. Even under all the ivy there were side branches that were green to break off. Is it possible that the ivy was protecting the tree from the beetle ? I did query if it could be a wych elm and Patrick reckoned that it didn't have enough green in it to be that.

If the ivy protection is a possibility who would I contact to query this?

I did discover on one wood ID site that the wych elm is also known as the scotch elm which my consultant didn't know but did say that as far as he knows Scotland is the predominant site for wych elms.

Rob

 

[davebrac]

That is oak most probably Turkey oak by the colour and size and it also looks splated which is what is probably throwing you down the wrong path in identifying it.

We have a lot of turkey oak where l live

 

[OldWood]

A query was raised as to whether walnut would grow here, but we used to collect walnuts for pickling off a large tree at Blairgowrie which is 50 miles north of Edinburgh.

That's interesting. Although given all the old orchards around the Carse of Gowrie, maybe walnuts in Blairgowrie isn't so surprising. I used to work with a guy who had a walnut plantation in Essex, and he reckoned he was on the northern limit for commercial walnut production. While we lived near Milton Keynes, I had a walnut in the garden that produced fairly regularly, but not reliably every year.

Maybe if climate change goes on I'll reconsider not planting a walnut up here in Scotland's cold shoulder!

Hi Dick; As far as I can remember, I think that it was in the 1970's we used to collect the walnut's in the garden of my wife's aunt. They never matured as far as I know, but there was a point in their growth that you tested them with a long needle to ensure they were still soft right through and collected them for pickling. It was a good sized tree then.

Rob