Unique 🌳 🌲 trees

[Aklogcabin]

I enjoy my time in the woods. And enjoy taking the time to examine the trees. Things like burls or curly ques that make 360 degree turns.
We have a huge birch tree near our cabin. 2 men can't reach around it. It is covered in burls. I would love to harvest this mature tree before it starts to rot . I saw another birch that was pure white. No limbs or black, just snow white for 25 feet at least 16" at base.
I've come across a few 360 degree trees.
I removed a white spruce near our cabin that was beetle killed. Our son counted over 200 rings. He's going to mount the 58" non typical moose antlers he harvested just a few hundred yards away on an angled crosscut slab to honor this moose. I'm sure this old moose knew this tree, in his home.
We have a mountain ash that i got out of the crotch of a huge box elder in my parents yard 35 years ago. Never got more than 24" tall. It went through a forest fire n got destroyed, burned up 25 years ago. That little tree started to grow again and now stands near 30 ' .
I enjoy trees n wood so much i built a wood shop.
Got any pictures of unique trees ? Stories ?
This is a picture of the birch tree near our cabin. It makes me feel like it is a special tree where fairies would live

 

[Magpie]

We have ash dieback in Ireland this past few years, but this year it's affected our trees. Today I read that horse chestnuts are also being hit by a canker. All imported diseases. The photo is of Elmery Cross in Donegal. A forester planned it about 20 years ago I think- but he passed away quite young before he saw it come into effect. Isn't it a lovely gift to the world?

 

[Alaskajohn]

The rains this summer softened the roots around one large birch tree with a huge burl and it fell yesterday. While most of the tree is now cut and split for future use in our woo stove. I saved about a five foot section with that burl attached and it’s sitting next to my woodshed. Not sure what I’m going to do with it just yet!

We also take great interest in the trees around our property. The predominant trees in our area are spruce, birch, cottonwood and aspen with underbrush being willows and alder. The wife and I spend a lot of time making trails to where there is standing deadwood to harvest or walking to all the birch groves looking for chaga. We are at 2,800 feet, so we are at the top edge of the tree line.

With termination dust on the mountain tops and the first leaves turning yellow, I know I will be spending quality time in the woods collecting more standing deadwood. My wood sheds where I season birch is now 100% full. Where I store my wood for use, I can put up about three plus more chords. I know where the standing deadwood is that will fill it up. I have to go through about 200 yards of prime blueberry bushes to get to it, so the wife wants to wait until we finish harvesting berries from those bushes. Unfortunately this will leave a trail that will last for years, so I want to do this as carefully as I can.

 

[zoomzoom]

Our woods is primarily Oak, Cherry & Maple but has a few other varieties in small quantities.
We have (or had) a few pretty cool trees.
1 - A beech tree that's about 24" diameter that has some initials engraved in it... dated 1911.
2 - A pair of maples. One trunk grew straight up. The second trunk wraps a full 360 degrees around the trunk of the first tree as it went up about 20-30'.
3 - Many years ago (probably at least 50-70 years), the tree was snapped off about 5' off the ground. The trunk stayed attached to the still standing 5' of stump but the tree was laid on it's side. Over the years, the top of the tree that was laying on the ground decomposed but about 15' from the original stump, the tree started growing again. It grew to about 60'. So the stump is about 15' from the actual vertical tree. Where that vertical part grew, it wasn't touching the ground so the tree was offset from its stump.

 

[Heartbroken]

I happened across this book in a used bookstore, and sat right down on the floor to start reading it. It's absolutely fascinating if you love trees, and are interested in what they say. Forest Forensics: A Field Guide to Reading the Forested Landscape: Wessels, Tom: 9780881509182: Amazon.com: Books
The author also has some videos
Pretty cool stuff! I've always been interested in trees. We used to have a farm that was located in an area that had been devestated by the Great Fire of 1881. We cut a lot of firewood, and occasionally would cut down a tree that had a char ring in in it. It had been burned in the fire, and survived. I could see the tiny rings after the char ring as the poor tree just barely survived for a few years after, before it really started growing again. There was another area that was fairly sandy, and we discovered these odd lightning-shaped black lines zig zagging into the lower soil layers. Looking closer I realized it was charcoal....it was tree roots that had burned but were left perfectly in place.

 

[Weedygarden]

We have a huge birch tree near our cabin. 2 men can't reach around it. It is covered in burls. I would love to harvest this mature tree before it starts to rot . I saw another birch that was pure white. No limbs or black, just snow white for 25 feet at least 16" at base.

Do you make birch syrup from the sap?

 

[Aklogcabin]

Do you make birch syrup from the sap?

No , way tooooo much work. We use maple syrup though

 

[Weedygarden]

No , way tooooo much work. We use maple syrup though

Tapping maples and birches for sap to make syrup is something I've been fascinated with. Yes, something like 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.

 

[Peanut]

You can tap Black Walnut trees for making syrup also. I think with maples it takes 35g of sap to produce 1 gallon of syrup. With Black Walnut it takes close to 75g of sap.

I'm in the "just because you can doesn't mean you should" camp. The work required with some tree species show very little return for the effort. Walnut falls into that category, one gallon of syrup from the work required to collect 70g of sap is a poor bargain.

Here it's easy to grow sugar cane. 1 acre of sugar cane will produce 500+ gallons of syrup. Molasses is just a thick heavy syrup. It's also used to make Rum!
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Edit to add…. I always check beech trees locally. They live more than 100yrs and are great trees for carving initials. If I find an old beech I always check for messages or just initials someone may have left long ago.

 

[joel]

Maple is the best of twenty different tree for syrup.