osage id help

[walkabout]

reading recent posts of osage bows, and noticed it looks very similar to some wood i used to use for carving back home when i was younger. i only ever used young pieces, which was primarily white wood, but anyway the bark looks very similar to the pics of osage staves some people are posting. most of how i know to identify osage comes from pics of the fruits older trees bear and bark from a distance, but does osage have an orange color to the underside of the bark? like say if the bark is scraped a bit. thanks for any help, unfortunatly right now i have no experience with osage =\\

[Pat B]

Osage has thorns on the smaller branches.

[Osagetree]

There is osage in Ohio but it is sparse in my area of the state. In the winter smaller trees upper limbs kinda have an orange tinge to them if your looking from a distance. Do an internet search and you'll find good pics for identification.

[walkabout]

yea im originally from pennsylvania, and thats where the wood ive seen is at. the pics on the net ive seen look similar to it too, though i cant remember whether they had thorns or not. ill be going up there for easter so im gonna have to look into it further. i know theres a nice walnut log up there, from a big tree that grew in my grandmas yard but im not sure how badly bugs and such have affected the tree over the years. thanks for the info though.

[walkabout]

stepdads uncle here has a farm that some amish cut some timber from last year, i get the chance im gonna go out there and have a look around too to see what kind of staves i can find.

[Brent Hill]

The osage bark looks alot like other hardwood bark but it will have small (1/4 to 1/2 inch thorns coming throught the bark and I think the under portion of the bark is white like the sapwood.  However it is hard to miss the yellowish honey stained heartwood of even the smallest branch.  The tree also also has the most bizare branch structure that is best described as the Texas Family trees with lots of family members splitting and joining where they should't be joined or split.  Being from Texas, you see alot of these families and alots of these great trees.   Walkabout, If you can ever make it down here, I'll show you around and put you on some trees.

[walkabout]

that would be a trip id like to make, havent been to texas yet.the interior wood color of osage i definitly know, its the outside i was unsure of. im just going to have to lop off a branch from one of the trees when i get up there and see, its on my grandparents property so they wont mind at all.

[John Scifres]

Did it look like this?
 

Small trees have thorns.  Bigger ones may have some especially on the branches but not nearly as many as saplings.

[walkabout]

the orange color is definitly right, and the bark was very similar to the stave in osagetrees recent post on the osage sapling. ive never cut a big branch so i dont know what the heartwood of the stuff looks like.but the young wood was bone white. i actually favored it for carving because of the contrasting orange under the gray bark then the white youngwood. thanks for the posts guys, ive found a few pics on the net that lead me to believe it may be osage, the only way ill really know is to check it when i get up there.