Acacia Trees Down the Road: What the Hell are They?

Just down the road from my property are a grove of big acacia trees. I ignored them never making the connection that koa wood (Acacia koa) and Australian blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon), some of prettiest wood in the world, might be growing near my house here in northern California.

So today I went and took pictures of them hoping that it would turn out to be koa or blackwood. Pictures below:




Well I'm learning that there are a lot of different acacia trees. What I think I've established is that these are not koa (sob!) or black acacia (sob!). Michael of this forum and who lives in northern California thinks they are silver acacia (Acacia dealbata) also known as mimosa. They do not look like mimosa to me at all and I am a scratching my head. Does anybody know?

If you ever get down to Sebastopol I have plenty of black acacia billets you can have for the price of a visit. But don't hesitate to grab that silver acacia. Saw it up green and sticker it. It will dry perfectly. Acacia likes to get sawed green in thin pieces.

The sapsuckers seem to like it. On that picture of the trunk, all those horizontal holes are made by the sapsucker bird (a type of woodpecker) The tree exudes sap, which attracts insets, which the bird eats.

In Virginia we have several different Locust trees that are a few of the thousand-plus members of the Acacia genus of trees.

Black and Honey Locust are beautiful woods, but are rarely cut into lumber because it's so hard and prone to twisting while drying. Sparks will fly when cutting it with a chainsaw, especially after it's dry! I have short boards and turning stock from it, but don't like to put it on my sawmill unless ready to re-tip the blades. It's the best firewood there is in VA.

This is the wattle section of the feild guide to species around where I live.
http://canberra.naturemapr.org/Community/CategoryGuide/73
The growing conditions and varietal selective breeding for cultivation can affect appearance.
Acacia melanoxylon grows naturally from subtropical Queensland where it never sees a frost down to the southern tip of Tasmania where it gets a regular winter dusting of snow. For some reason Tasmanian Blackwood is the name / source I seem to remember being used most in luthiery.

TimberTones said:

In Virginia we have several different Locust trees that are a few of the thousand-plus members of the Acacia genus of trees.

Black and Honey Locust are beautiful woods, but are rarely cut into lumber because it's so hard and prone to twisting while drying. Sparks will fly when cutting it with a chainsaw, especially after it's dry! I have short boards and turning stock from it, but don't like to put it on my sawmill unless ready to re-tip the blades. It's the best firewood there is in VA.

Click to expand...

That reminds me of the hardness of the Bo d'arc trees out west. Once dried, they cannot be cut. The wood will ruin a chain and bar of a chainsaw, fast.