??? on Black Locust

[Skeaterbait]

I have found a tree that is about 8" diameter, very tall, straight and virtually no limbs for about 20 feet up. It does fork about 10 feet up giving two very nice 4"-6" diameter runs. I was told it is BL and the leaves look like the pictures I have found, but the bark does not.

Does BL bark look different on a young tree?

[George Tsoukalas]

The smaller the tree the smoother the bark. On an 8 inch tree it should appear furrowed. No thorns on the tree but found on branches. You should see large pea like pods by now. May be there are some still on the ground from last year. Jawge

[Sparrow]

 Send in a picture of the bark.The lines in the bark running vertical will tell you if the trunk has alot of twist in it.sometimes B.L. can twist terribly. Frank

[Skeaterbait]

It will probably be a bit before I can make another trip down there for pics but I will make an attempt to describe it. It's not smooth, in fact it's quite ruff. It's almost like seeing a mountain scape from an extremely high altitude, with peaks and valleys. The depth of the valley hit between 1/4" and 1/2" and the peaks are very rough as if the bark splits open there and the insides are drying. Each little run of peaks is about 3 or 4 inches long. It's grayish in color with the peaks turning brown.

[richpierce]

Sounds like black locust to me.  Does the crown (foliage, branches) have an open appearance (not dense like a maple; you should be able to see through the foliage)? Black locust 4-6" in diameter will have some crown after you remove the sapwood.  For me an 8-10" tree is ideal and I get 4 staves of which 1 or 2 are good. No matter how straight or knot-free a black locust looks, when you split them, they can go every which way and have flaws inside.

[Hillbilly]

The bark on young BL usually looks like this:



And on older trees like this:





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