Douglas Fir
Douglas Fir, named after David Douglas, the Scottish botanist, is the most
important tree of the Pacific Northwest, growing larger and covering more land
than any other. We've all seen it as
Christmas trees. It is Oregon's state tree.
When mature, the trunk tends to be like a telephone pole, with no low
branches. The bark is thick, dark and corky, deeply grooved, with dark reddish
brown ridges. The inch-long needles are thick. The cones are 3 to 4 inches long.
Squirrels and mice eat Douglas-fir seeds. Bears like to eat the sap after
scratching off the bark.
Douglas-fir wood is highly valued, being dense and durable. Its availability in large dimensions make it
a natural for large construction.
Black Locust
Black locust was originally native only to the Appalachian Mountains and
sections of Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma, and southern Missouri. This
beautiful tree is planted widely around the world as an ornamental tree because
of its fragrant, attractive flowers and beautiful foliage. Bees make honey from
the nectar, and squirrels eat the seeds.
It has
been cultivated extensively to control erosion, to reclaim strip mine land,
and for ornamental purposes.
It belongs to the pea or legume family, having nodules
(knoblike growths) on
the roots allowing it to add nitrogen to the soil like clover and soybeans.
The bark is scaly, heavily furrowed and crosshatched, gray to dark brown.
The wood is very strong, hard, and heavy. It is used for insulator pins, mine
timbers, fence posts, poles, and railroad ties. It is prized as firewood.
White Birch
Officially known as the paper birch, this tree is also called the
white birch and the canoe birch. It is an attractive tree with its glistening white bark and
light green leaves, used extensively for landscaping. It is the New Hampshire
state tree.
Paper birch bark is very strong and almost totally
resistant to rot. It can be easily stripped from the tree in large sections.
Strong and paper-like, it was used by the native Indians to make birch bark
canoes. It was also used for writing paper. The bark of this tree also burns very easily. When fire strikes the birch, it
burns quickly.
The wood of the paper birch is soft, firm, and knot-free. It is used to make
hundreds of food-related products, such as chopsticks, ice-cream sticks,
toothpicks, and wooden spoons.
Young branches are orange-brown to dull red in color, contrasting vividly
with the white of the main tree. At the base of old trunks the bark becomes blackish and furrowed.
Aspen
Aspen is the common name for
certain Poplars. Especially the quaking aspen, a tree whose leafstalks are so
tight that the leaves can move easily from side
to side but not up or down. The slightest breeze sets all the leaves into
motion. The Greeks have a saying: "Poplar leaves are like women's tongues,
never still."
Although the inner bark is intensely bitter, it is a favorite food of the
beaver. The smooth, waxy, yellow-green to silvery-gray bark eventually becomes
dark brownish-gray, rough and furrowed.
Drift
The potpourri for your firebox, driftwood can be any type of wood. It is
distinguished by its exposure to the elements. Composed of branches and split
trunks that have fallen into streams, rivers and oceans, the softest portions of
the wood have been abraded away, leaving the stronger structural wood intact and
polished. The process enhances hard details around knots and brings out the
twists in the growth patterns normally concealed. Insect trails and holes can be
pronounced. The results can be breathtakingly organic.
Color ranges from the normal silver grays of weathered wood to rich reds,
browns and oranges. Often, patches of the original bark are added for contrast
to the bareness of the polished wood.
