Is this log mahogany?

[Frederick Skelly]

Looks nice enough that, whatever it is, I'd put it to work!

[John K Jordan]

I agree. It looks like elm to me, too.

Mark,

If it is elm you are in luck - you can easily eliminate a bunch of guesses. Elm has very distinctive bands of latewood pores (summer growth). These bands are so distinctive you can almost always see them on sanded and finished end grain even without a magnifier. This is American Elm.
elm.jpg

Note that a few other species also have wavy bands and can look similar, such as hackberry.
Hackberry usually has a wide sapwood, often a little mottled (courtesy of the wood database, bowl is hackberry and walnut):
hackberry.jpg hackberry-claro-walnut-turned-400x400.jpg

If your wood doesn't have these wavy bands, you can positively eliminate elm as a candidate.

Ash is also often confused with elm but the end grain will show the difference.

BTW, if you haven't guessed, wood ID is a little hobby of mine. I enjoy the puzzles. Guesses from pictures of a face of a board are also amusing since wood has such an amazing variety of appearance in different trees and often even within the same tree. If anyone doubts that, just look at some of the photos at http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/, for example, here are some of his pages on Elm. (If you look at the last link on Misc. Elms prepare to be amazed!)
http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/person...20american.htm
http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/person...elm,%20red.htm
http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/person...%20english.htm
http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/person...lm,%20misc.htm
Near the end of nearly every page are some example woodturnings which really show of the wood (and the variations).

JKJ

[Bill Dufour]

Could be red Eucalyptus if the bark is reddish. or some kind of Acacia. Does the wood float in water or sink. Neighbors acacia wood sinks even after years of drying.
Bill D.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I use a lot of mahogany. There are a few things that don't quite fit mahogany here:

• Grain has too defined of an annular ring
• Tiny knots like in your image, although do occur, are not common in groups like that
• Color variation not consistent with mahogany
• Mahogany smells sweet when cut- unmistakeable aroma that you would have noticed

There are so many woods being called mahogany these days, but my comments relate to Honduran, and Cuban true mahoganies. Your image may be under/over exposed and not show true colors, but I am basing my comments on this image. True mahogany will darken rather quickly in UV. It is a pinkish or orangish brown when cut and darkens to a deep reddish-brown. It silvers when weathered. The ends would have been silver-grey much like teak if they were left exposed to the weather.

[Mark Gibney]

I got the results back from the Forest Products Lab at the USDA on the species of wood that I enquired about on this thread, and they say it's LAURACEAE. Great service, I'm delighted to know what the wood is, eventho it'll make zero difference to what I do with it.

Reading about this on the WoodDataBase it could be a piece of Bay Laurel.

I got two really nice "slabs" from the log that I'll use to make a couple of benches.

[Andrew Gibson]

Thanks for sharing the results!
We have Cuban Mahogany Here in Florida as far north as Sarasota and rumor of a few trees in St Pete. There is quite a bit of it over in Miami and West Palm.

[Mikail Khan]

Mahogany sawdust mixed with water will be red. Does not look like it.

[Alan Lightstone]

Never heard of one in St. Pete. I'd love to see it if the rumor is true.

[Wade Lippman]

I got the results back from the Forest Products Lab at the USDA on the species of wood that I enquired about on this thread, and they say it's LAURACEAE. Great service, I'm delighted to know what the wood is, eventho it'll make zero difference to what I do with it.

Cool; I didn't know that service existed.

[John K Jordan]

Cool; I didn't know that service existed.

If you want to check into the FPL wood ID service, in my first reply to this post I included a link to where you can read about it and find the exact instructions. Any US citizen can send in up to five samples a year.

From my experience with them, depending on the wood they may be able to identify the genus or even the species. But even knowing the family sure eliminates a lot of guessing.

[Bill Dufour]

California laurel is common city shrub/tree. Bay Leaf used in cooking is laurel leaf from Mediterranean trees. The woods smells like the leaf. the smoke from firewood smells the same, kind of peppery.
Bil l

[Danny Hamsley]

Sassafras is in the family Lauraceace. However, looks more like elm to me too. Sassafras does not have the wavy bands of elm. Does the latewood viewed on a clean cut on the end grain show the wavy bands?