Definitely one of those weird things that’s hard to google for…

I spent the day cutting a splitting a dead, standing tree on my property.  It was buck-nekkid, not a shred of bark still on it, but still solid wood so I’m not sure what it is.  Looking at the wood, I’m thinkin’ red oak.

I noticed black dots all through the wood, and then I noticed these funny threads that pull out of them as the wood splits.  Some of them are up to 2” or so.  Interesting to pull them out of the little tunnels and see how much you can get.  Definitely seem to be fungal, and about the diameter of a piece of spaghetti.

Any idea what this is, or even where to get a better diagnosis?  I just want to make sure I don’t have some weird disease on the property that needs to be taken care of.  The rest of the trees all seem pretty decent.

That looks like frass left behind by some wood boring insect. It’s basically wood that passes through whatever it was’ digestive tract as it tunnelled...or bug-dung in a nutshell. If you’re splitting it for firewood I wouldn’t worry about it.

89GTA - 24 November 2007 06:51 PM

That looks like frass left behind by some wood boring insect. It’s basically wood that passes through whatever it was’ digestive tract as it tunnelled...or bug-dung in a nutshell. If you’re splitting it for firewood I wouldn’t worry about it.

Yep.

Thanks both for the confirmation.

It’s pretty nice to cut and split wood that’s already seasoned and ready to go!