how to tell honey locust from black

[Tyke]

Ive had a bunch of locust curing for about 4 months i thought it was black locust but now in not sure

[Eric Krewson]

If you cut the tree and the trunk looked like this;



It is honey locust, pretty hard to confuse with the non-thorny black locust trunk.

[SLIMBOB]

Looks different. Honey locust typically has mondo thorns growing out of the trunk. Compound leaves. Lots of sap wood.

[PatM]

Black Locust does have thorns on the young trunks but they are much more rose like than the  long spines on Honey Locust.
 

[Tyke]

Good to know and lucky me its bl no thorns

[osage outlaw]

Easy way to tell the difference.  Hug the tree.  If it hurts, its honey locust.  If it doesn't, its black locust.

[huisme]

Awesome, black locust is great bow wood

[Josh B]

Just because the trunk doesn't have the nasty thorns doesn't mean its not honeylocust.  The sunburst honey locust variety is mostly thornless and is growing all over salt lake city.  In fact it is a very common landscaping tree planted by cities all over.  The bark furrows on black locust has a somewhat diamond pattern like expanded metal.  Honey locust furrows are completely different.  The first two pics are black locust.  The last two are sunburst honey locust.  Josh

[Tyke]

Thanks for that info josh ill have to look at it better

[Aaron H]

Easy way to tell the difference.  Hug the tree.  If it hurts, its honey locust.  If it doesn't, its black locust.

Hahaha 

[Buckeye Guy]

Josh
Thanks for jumping in with the pics to clarify this for us
I was not sure how we were gona pull that off with out pics
Now that he has it cut anybody want to try to tell him which stave is which tree type by the wood without bark on it ?
That becomes even more interesting even though there is a big difference ?
any pics ?

[George Tsoukalas]

In NH, BL has white flowers in the spring while HL has pink flowers. Jawge

[PatM]

 Jawge, unfortunately there is a cultivar of Black Locust that also has pink flowers.

 Of course the street tree variety of Honey Locust will be the thornless trunk variety.

[Tyke]

Well unfortunately for me i think its sunburst it doesn't have the deep ridge look of the BL although it does kind of have that expanded metal look .It is a branch about 10" round and came from about 20' in the air.does the bark look the same that far from the trunk i know alot of branches are smoother than the the trunk?

[Tyke]

I know im grasping at straws here ill probably turn it into fire wood thanks fellas