Need help with wood ID

[Ringeck85]

No, I didn't see any nuts lying around the tree.  The wood turned out to be incredibly moist and fibrous all the way through. Definitely not oak or maple. I tried to split it and epic failed, with one half being unsalvagable.  I suspect it's some sort of tupelo or gum kind of tree.

[okie64]

The bark looks like a young hickory but from what i can tell the rings do look diffuse porous which would rule hickory out. We have black gum trees around here but the bark doesnt look like that on the ones that Ive seen. If it is fibrous like you say it is it should make a bow.

[Ringeck85]

From the first log of this I have roughed out/whittled a couple of potential bow staves.  Fingers crossed that when it's time to tiller them they won't break, but with some knots and cracks of concern here and there, I'm not so sure.  I will wait longer for the other log (smaller) to dry; I think it tried to split it way too soon.

From working the wood, the sapwood is white, creamy and relatively soft but very strong feeling too.  The heartwood was very light colored (almost same shade as sapwood, though this is a relatively young tree) very moist and fibrous but still pretty tough stuff, and ripped/shredded everywhere from draw knifing.  I might have a slightly concave belly in some places too.  Will post pictures if they don't turn into firewood; waiting for them to dry more for now.

I had another couple ideas:

Could it be red mulberry? I remember seeing some crushed dead leaves that were rounded and sorta mulberry like lying around.  Might have been too early to see flowers or berries (why I should wait till I got an ID before I cut something next time) Is mulberry diffuse porous or ring porous and does the wood coloring look like a match? 

It could also be Sweetgum of some sort, but I don't remember seeing a lot of gum balls on the ground.  The bark didn't look exactly like other sweetgum trees that tends to be a bit more scaly.  I'm not sure about Tupelo.

It is most definitely not: oak, hickory, maple, magnolia, tuliptree, probably not sweetgum but possible, and it's not dogwood, all of which grow in my locale.  It is a relatively dense wood, and you have the pictures there.

[DarkSoul]

Please remember you are working with green wood. This is more difficult to work with than dry wood. Green wood tears easily with a drawknife, while dry wood doesn't. It feels relatively dense, because the wood still contains maybe 50% water by weight. Yes, half the weight of a fresh stave is water that still needs to be removed! Don't let the fresh weight fool you about the specific gravity of the wood. It is OK to work down the green wood to a near floor tillered blank, but remember you need to wait tillering until the wood has thoroughly dried.
Mulberry has clear heartwood and sapwood distinction, while this tree does not appear to have any heartwood. You're dealing with a whitewood. Mulberry also is ring porous, which I ruled out already. In whitewoods (such as maple, hickory, ash, poplar, beech), there is only sapwood, with sometimes a small portion of the core of older trees with a dark coloration called FALSE heartwood. Not actual heartwood we see in woods such as walnut, osage or mulberry.

[crooketarrow]

  LAREL OR WATER OAK dosn't grow around here. But I can tell you it's not red oak.
  The end pic. and bark looks like pig nut hickory.

[Pat B]

It won't be long before the leaves come out. You have to wait for this wood to dry so in a month or so you should know what the wood is.