Good trees for bow building?

[Flyboy718]

I live in Louisiana...what are some trees which are native to my area that are good for building bows?  
I have a pecan orchard that I grew up in and have access to a lot of pecan wood.  What about sweet gum, there is a never ending supply of that here.

[bigcountry]

Pecan is good.  Hickory good, should be some osage down there somewhere.  Black locust is ok.  White mulberry.  Hackberry, I heard is good.

[Flyboy718]

I live in northern Louisiana...Wow!  I am excited about the pecan then!  We have about a 20 acre pecan grove and plenty of limbs fall from the trees in the summer!

[KellyG]

since Pecan is by some considered a type of hickory you may not want to get any limb that is on the ground or that you did not control the drying on. I just read a tread about hickory getting a fungus in it that makes it useless for bows, if it is not dried off the ground.
Someone with more knowlegde than I will be along shortly and will let us both know.
Kelly

[scrub-buster]

I wouldn't use any limb that fell off of a tree.  There is probably a good reason that it fell off in the first place.  Maybe if it was snapped off by really high winds or lightening it would still be OK  Just my $0.02

[Flyboy718]

pecan limbs fall in the summer due to the large amounts of sap that collect and increase the weight and cause them to shear off...

[Pat B]

Pecan is a hickory(Carya). It is probably the least strong of the hickories but should still make a good bow. As said about, hickory, red oak, white oak, mulberry, hackberry, ERC, elm, ash, black walnut, black cherry and probably others. I have heard of folks using sweet gum but it is a bear to split.

[Schmidtster]

I have a similar question, I was wondering what are good bow building trees in Canada. I have started on an ash stave but was wondering what other choices I have. And what is ERC?

[KellyG]

ERC Eastern Red Ceder.

[Gene Gillis]

persimon is great wood for bows and the fruit trees, such as the plum

[beetlebailey1977]

Persimmon is a very good wood just be carefull that the bark doesnt spiral up the tree....I cut one a while back and in 6' it spiraled 180 degrees.  ERC is a tough one to first time make but I am trying one myself.  Give sweet gum a try.  I have cut and spilt some staves about 2.5 years ago.  Gonna see how it does one day.  Just beware of bugs spray the bark and remove the bark to dry.  Look for some winged elm, water elm, american elm, sugarberry (southern hackberry), american hornbeam, hop hornbeam, the maples,  and any fuit wood.  Give them a try and see.

[Flyboy718]

Cool...there is a pretty good bit of winged elm on the property too...never knew I had access to all this bow making 'gold'!!