tamarisk from Davewyo

[phinds]

@davewyo kindly sent me a couple of bole segments of tamarisk recently. Here are some pics. The whole set is at

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/tamarisk.htm

About 10" long and 8" long bole sections

 

The small sample planks I cut from them

 

A flat cut sample

 

A quartersawn sample (with some nice ray flakes)

 

Sample with boxed pith

 

one of my 1/4" x 1/4" end grain closeups showing typical tamarisk characteristics

 

[davewyo]

Nice!

I am surprised how good the "lumber" from those samples looks. I figured that "noxious plant" equals "crappy lumber" but it looks pretty interesting after all.

The plants I took the sample from were more shrub-like than tree-like. Maybe 15' tall, and multi-stemmed. A four inch diameter stem/trunk was about all I could get and not be into the stump.

On a recent trip on the San Juan River I saw Tamarisk of the same variety growing with stems up to maybe 14" in diameter and they were 25' or 30' tall in places.

Tangent:

The Tamarisk is a controversial plant in the desert southwest. Early studies showed that it consumed much more water than native species do, and that native fauna such as bird life did not use the Tamarisk as habitat.

Those assertions have come into doubt over time. Later studies show that the Tamarisk may not take up all that much water in comparison to native plants, and (for one remarkable example) fauna like the southwestern willow flycatcher (an endangered species) seems to like Tammy groves in the Grand Canyon.

A small green beetle (from southeast Asia, I think) has been introduced into the Tammy groves along the river banks of the Colorado, Green, San Juan, and Other Rivers in select spots and it eats all the leaves off the shrubbery. After a couple of seasons without leaves the Tammy dies, leaving miles and miles of dead shrubs along the river banks. Those burst into flames spectacularly, which can get out of control in a heartbeat and destroy people's homes.

Anyhoo...the much-maligned Tamarisk yielded better lumber than I expected. It was pretty tough to cut down, prolly a janka in the range of Walnut or something.