wood identification help please

[Mel Fulks]

Osage oranges are only produced on the female trees.

[robert baccus]

In the mid-1800's there was a lucrative business selling wagonloads of BO_DARC seeds to cattle men for living fences. Hence the wide distribution which was once quite small. It is kin to the mulberry and is a "lost tropical" which we have 12 or so in the US. Originally it was found on the Red river border between Texas/Oklahoma.

[Bruce Pratt]

Black locust fluorescence under UV light looks like the yellow-green color used by some emergency vehicles. Very distinctive and diagnostic.

[Jack Mincey]

I have turned a bit of Osage that was a gift from a fellow turner and a bunch that I bought. The wood pictured is Osage. Every piece I've turned, turns me and my lathe yellow. My students use to say I looked like big bird when I finished turning it. It is very yellow when first cut or turned, but does turn somewhat amber in color over time as it ages. I love to turn the stuff, just wish I had it in my area.
Jack

[Wes Ramsey]

I was so impressed with Osage orange that I named my turning biz Osage Turnings. The Osage were a warlike Indian tribe native to my area of Arkansas. Folks around here call it bois d'arc, pronouncing it "Bo Dark." The dust is florescent orange but the wood turns a beautiful golden brown with age. Tough to find a straight trunk; tends to grow gnarly and crooked, and thrives in stream beds around here. I'm waiting for someone to offer me a downed tree. I'll go cheerfully with chainsaw and files. Random aside: there's an old belief that the big green fruits keep spiders away. Nonsense, but you'll see them on many a windowsill.

Ben,

Nice to meet another creeker close to home! We don't have much Osage Orange over here in NCA - plenty of locust and mulberry though and I've turned quite a bit of mulberry. It is related to bodark, but the wood is quite different. Same yellow color, turns amber with age, and seems to be impervious to bugs and rot, but it is lightweight and a pleasure to turn. On top of that, green mulberry is my favorite smoking wood for birds and ribs. It is similar to apple, but easier to come by around here. I bet osage orange would also give a good smoke.

[Ben Pierce]

Interesting, Wes! Bunch of mulberrys on my property; I might need to try them for meat smoking. I've stuck with oak and pecan, mostly.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

The wood is not Osage Orange, Osage Orange is called Orange for what it looks like, I have a couple of picture here of Osage Orange, you can see the bark color also the inner bark color, besides that I have a picture of Mulberry, you can compare the bark color of that to the Osage Orange bark, and you be the judge of what you would call Orange, also a picture of Black Locust, compares well with the OP picture, so my vote is for Black Locust.

like Reed says Osage is much more Orange.

Osage orange.jpg Osage Orange log.jpg Mulberry logs.jpg Black Locust tree.jpg

[William Bachtel]

I agree with Reed , Black Locust again. Not bright enough yellow for it to be Osage.

[Morey St. Denis]

Believe you'd do well to heed Leo's experience. Could the color response of your camera really be that lousy, especially considering how vivid green your grass appears to show? Inexperienced country woodcutters have been known to make the occasional mistake... Both trees are typical fence-row and wind-break types prevalent in your area, they could well be cutting both at this location. Why the reluctance to conduct even one of those straightforward verification tests? You report you've already been green turning it into bowls. Just submerge and soak several handfuls of those shavings in a pot of water overnight. If the water turns a noticeable yellow / amber color, you've indeed got Osage, as it will readily leach its colorants. If not, take another bag of those shavings to someone who has a blacklight, perhaps even an outdoor electric bug-zapper. It's a fairly conclusive scientific method; let's get with the program!

[Bill Boehme]

.... Random aside: there's an old belief that the big green fruits keep spiders away. Nonsense, but you'll see them on many a windowsill.

Maybe not spiders, but they will definitely keep werewolves away. I haven't seen a werewolf since putting one of those sticky green fruit balls on my window sill.