what is this

muff munch

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i found this while walking through the woods one day and taught it would make a nice piece,does any one know what type of wood it is.there was a skinnier piece of wood growing around it the pics arent the best and the leaves are a bit dead now but somebody might know as im not sure cheers

jack of all

My guess is it's Contorted Hazel (sometimes called corkscrew hazel). I've never seen branches that thick; the smaller stems are often used by flower arrangers.

muff munch

ya ive heard about hazle bein grown like tahat but i taught hazle was a darker colour

dathi

your dead leaves look more like hawthorn. looks like two saplings grew into each other causing the spiral. contorted hazel grows in a twist on its own due to a faulty gene have you a picture of the end grain might have a better guess then

reverenddave

it's probably
hawthorn
or wytch hazel
judging by the bark colour

William Powell

Judging by the leaves its Blackthorn. The leaves you have in the pics I guess are from sucker regrowth (come straight out of the ground or long shoots off old wood) these leaves have more deeper incisions than the leaves on the main wood.

Absolute classic example of the effect you get when Blackthorn grows up with honeysuckle and the honeysuckle strangles it. Its gone a lot further than these turned into walking sticks. afaik you can get the same twisted effect with most hedgerow trees/shrubs when honeysuckle grows up them at just the right time.

Much sought after by walking stick makers and afaik some old countryman will try and create the effect by tucking a honeysuckle leader around a suitable hedgerow/woodland sapling. Hazel is supposed to the easiest to try this with as you can start an establised honeysuckle off around a young straight shoot from a copiced hazel. I can find a reference here at the bottom of the page but no really good pics

Edit> Another indication of Blackthorn is an orange colour under the bark which I think can be seen in the pics.

del88

A site i found recently for identifying trees..
http://www.oplin.org/tree/index.html

William Powell

Last night I was convinced it was Blackthorn now not so sure

When I cut the grass at home this week I cut over a whole load of Blackthorn suckers and I was quite sure the leaves were identical to those in the OP's pictures, however just been out this morning and I can't find a single leaf that looks the same.

ID is a little difficult from the leaves because they might not necessarily be true to type as they seem to come straight of growth of the main trunk and of course looking the way it is that specimin might not have been in the best health to start with.

Anyway when its not so wet outside I'm going to wander around our hedgerows and see if I can spot a similar leaf. In particular I'm looking for long shoots on damaged hedgerow Hawthorn and similar on Blackthorn.

OP what were the local conditions when you found this wonder? Was it in a hedgrow, woodland or old garden, how tall was the main plant, was it part of a bigger coppiced plant? Also how hard/heavy is the wood, hazel would be a lighter less dense wood than Hawthorn or Blackthorn.

muff munch

cheers for the responses,still not 100%,i found it in an oak forestry growing on the side of a bankment,ive no pics of the grain but its very tight grained.

William Powell

If its tight grained and heavy/dense then blackthorn or hawthorn are possibles. Elm regrowth in hedgrows grows quick so is not that dense when it starts out and hazel isn't very dense either. That said strange strangled slow growing condtions in competition with oak isn't going to give you anything that normal. Still not found any leaves I would swear were exactly the same.

SpitfireIV

Make a truncheon out of it!! :P

muff munch

CroppyBoy1798 wrote: »

Make a truncheon out of it!! :P

thats what ya call a truncheon,you wouldnt want to have pissed off the copper who had that:Dlooks quite simular tho