Hello, I do not have any pictures just yet since the weather prevents me from going back out to my woods, but I am hoping that this description will provide some clues until then. Today I located and chopped an 18' tree out of a large patch of similar trees, all of which I believed to be Hickory. I was planning on making several hiking staffs out of this tree. But, when I cut the tree into three sections, I noticed that the wood was all pearly white; a problem because I thought that all Hickory trees possessed distinctively dark heartwood in comparison to a white sapwood... DETAILS: Height - 18' tall (and very straight) Width - about 5" at the base. Leaves - (pictures coming) looked like a hickory - 3 large leaves at end of leaflet with several smaller leaves on each side of the leaflet. Misc: Smooth & thick gray bark which peeled off quite easily. The sapwood was very fibrous... breaking off a limb sometimes led to several long fibers to be pulled several feet down the length of the trunk (after debarking). I guess my first question, until I post some pictures, is: Do any Hickory variants have solid white wood, with no distinctive heartwood? An internet search brought me nothing.
Sounds like it is too young yet to have developed any dark heartwood. How many leaflets on the leaves?
Thank you for the reply, that makes me feel better since I was sure this was a Hickory of some kind before cutting. Using the online identification guides, I thought it might eb a Mockernut Hickory since it had smooth bark at this age. Here is a picture of the leaflet. This one has two pair of leaflets, but about half of the other leaves have only one pair of leaflets.
