woodartist81 wrote:I dont think Aspen and Poplar are the same type of wood they come from two different trees the Yellow Poplar and the Quaking Aspen....
You are right on, woodartist! Yellow poplar is certainly a different tree. In fact it is not even in the Populus genus. It's scientific name is Liriodendron tulipifera. It is certainly a highly prised wood that is widely used in furniture making as well as plywood cores.
That said - so are the woods from various trees of the Populus genus. Black cottonwood is often used for the core of plywoods and other uses. In the paper pulp industry, the white woods are often referred to as "popels".
The white woods, like Populus species and Yellow poplar are hard to identify once they have been made into boards. They are all diffuse porous with small rays. The heartwood of Yellow poplar is usually a greenish color, but can be tan greenish to yellow. Cottonwood heartwood can be an olive color but is a greyish color often.
Unless one has a wood identification book, with photos, and a 10X lens, these white woods look very similar and act nearly the same. Taste and smell is often used to tell the difference.
Yes, quaking aspen and bigtooth aspen are seldom used for lumber. What I wanted to point out in my earlier post is when we buy a poplar board, there is no guarantee of what species the board came from.
When I buy a poplar board from one of the big box stores, there can be a green color to one side of it. However when I ordered and picked up a larger quantity of poplar, the only color is creme, or a slight tanish color. I no longer have my texts on wood identification, but it's my guess the last order was cottonwood. It worked just fine for making shutters.
As far as I know, the term poplar is used to identify wood that could come from several different species of trees. It is a pretty wide group. The true poplars, from the genus Populus as well as Yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera).
Octogenarian's have an earned right to be a curmudgeon.
Chuck in Lancaster, CA
