With all the recent ice storms our city lot is filled with branches and trunks. I stopped by today and picked up a few pieces, however I’m not real sure what I got and I’m horrible at Identifying without leaves. 
It’s very wet, seems soft, I did a quick turn on one smaller piece, it looks interesting. 
Any thoughts?

Thanks 

I'm usually wrong but it sorta looks like elm.

That was my thought also . A sure way to tell in a finished bowl is the grain lines look like z's. Tried Leaf Snap app and says Russian Elm.

No clue on this one. 

Whatever it is, I really like the look of it.

Thanks everyone. I’ve been looking at pictures online, of both bark and grain pattern and I have to agree, it sure looks like Elm. I remember as a kid, we had 3 or 4 huge Elm trees in our yard, all had to be cut down due to the Dutch Elm disease. I remember the city had these trucks with huge sprayers attached to spray the trees trying to save them but they all were destroyed. 
I wasn’t thinking Elm because, well they were all destroyed. What I didn’t take into consideration is that was probably 60 years ago. Siri tells me that an American Elm can grow 3 to 6’ per year. Funny how as we get older we just assumed things stay the same 

We still have a Chinese elms around here. The tree guys told me they weren't affected by the "Dutch Elm" disease.

I remember trying to split elm for firewood years ago.  The grain seemed to weave together and made the splitting difficult if not impossible.

8 minutes ago, JimM said:

I remember trying to split elm for firewood years ago.  The grain seemed to weave together and made the splitting difficult if not impossible.

Someone told me that elm make great chair seats because of that characteristic.

Started doing a wet turn on some of this elm. The end grain fibers just don’t want to cut,no mater how sharp I get the gouge. I’m guessing that is the same characteristic that makes it tough to split. 
I’m wondering if I should just let it dry out some more?

26 minutes ago, Gordon said:

Started doing a wet turn on some of this elm. The end grain fibers just don’t want to cut,no mater how sharp I get the gouge. I’m guessing that is the same characteristic that makes it tough to split. 
I’m wondering if I should just let it dry out some more?

You could put CA glue on that area to harden the fibers 

3 minutes ago, lew said:

You could put CA glue on that area to harden the fibers 

I might give that a try. Thanks

On 4/16/2025 at 10:14 PM, Gerald said:

That was my thought also . A sure way to tell in a finished bowl is the grain lines look like z's. Tried Leaf Snap app and says Russian Elm.

 

Agree on the elm interlocked grain. From Wood Database: