043 Cucumbertree: The Northern Magnolia With Surprisingly Colorful Wood

Know Your Woods: The Softer Eastern Hardwoods Series

Some woods become easier to recognize once you have worked with them enough times.

Cucumbertree is becoming one of those woods for me.

When looking at freshly cut cucumbertree lumber at the sawmill, I have noticed areas of light green coloration. I have also seen purplish coloration in some of the wood. Those colors aren't necessarily present in every board or throughout an entire board, but once you've seen them, they become another clue to remember.

That raises an interesting question.

What happens to those colors over time?

I have air-dried cucumbertree lumber in my woodshop, so this is something I can continue observing. Do the green and purple tones remain after years of drying? Do they gradually turn brown? And what happens when an oil finish is applied? Does the oil preserve or emphasize those colors, or do they continue changing as the wood ages?

Sometimes learning wood isn't something we finish in a day. We can keep watching the same piece for years.

What Is Cucumbertree?

Cucumbertree (Magnolia acuminata) is a native North American magnolia.

That may surprise people who think of magnolias primarily as ornamental trees with spectacular flowers growing around homes and gardens.

Cucumbertree is different.

It is a genuine forest tree capable of reaching substantial size, and it has historically produced useful commercial lumber.

It is also closely related to the wood we covered in the previous article: yellow-poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera).

Both belong to the magnolia family, Magnoliaceae.

And once we start looking at their lumber, that family relationship becomes particularly interesting.

Why Is It Called Cucumbertree?

The name doesn't come from the wood.

It comes from the fruit.

After flowering, cucumbertree develops an elongated aggregate fruit that is green when immature and can resemble a small cucumber.

As the fruit matures, it changes color, eventually becoming reddish or pinkish and releasing bright red seeds.

Once you've seen those distinctive fruits on a tree, the name makes perfect sense.

A Magnolia of the Northern Forest

Cucumbertree is among the most cold-hardy of the magnolias.

Its native range extends through portions of eastern North America, from western New York and southern Ontario southward through the Appalachian region and into parts of the southeastern United States.

It generally performs best on moist, rich, well-drained soils and can be found growing with many familiar eastern hardwood species.

Unlike some smaller ornamental magnolias, cucumbertree can become a substantial forest tree. Mature specimens may commonly reach 60 to 80 feet or more, while exceptional trees can become considerably taller.

On good sites, cucumbertree can develop a relatively straight trunk capable of producing useful sawlogs.

Identifying the Standing Tree

If we have the entire tree in front of us, identification is much easier than identifying an anonymous pile of lumber.

Cucumbertree leaves are large, simple, alternate, and generally oval to oblong with smooth margins. They may reach several inches in length and often have a somewhat pointed tip.

The flowers are greenish-yellow rather than the large, showy white or pink flowers many people associate with ornamental magnolias.

Because the flowers occur among the foliage high in the tree, they can be surprisingly easy to overlook.

The cucumber-like immature fruit is one of the most memorable clues.

But at the sawmill, once the leaves, flowers, fruit, and much of the bark are gone, we have a different identification problem.

Identifying Cucumbertree Lumber

Cucumbertree lumber can range considerably in color.

The sapwood is generally pale, while the heartwood can range through yellowish-brown, tan, brown, olive, greenish, and occasionally darker or purplish tones.

That variation is one reason the wood can be interesting when freshly cut.

When trying to identify cucumbertree lumber, I would look at several characteristics together:

• Color: Pale sapwood with tan, yellowish-brown, olive, greenish, brown, or sometimes purplish areas.
• Weight: Relatively lightweight for a hardwood.
• Hardness: Soft to moderately soft.
• Grain: Generally straight.
• Texture: Fine to medium and fairly uniform.
• Pores: Small and distributed throughout the growth ring.
• Workability: Generally easy to saw, plane, shape, and machine.

As with the other woods in this series, no single characteristic should be considered absolute proof of identification.

Color in particular can vary from tree to tree and even from one board to another within the same tree.

From the Sawmill: Look for Green and Purple

One characteristic I've personally noticed in freshly cut cucumbertree lumber is occasional areas of light green coloration.

I've also seen purplish coloration.

Those colors are not necessarily distributed uniformly throughout the lumber, but when they appear among the otherwise pale, tan, or brown wood, they can become useful clues that make me take a closer look.

Of course, color alone isn't enough.

Our previous wood, yellow-poplar, can also have striking green, olive, brown, and mineral-colored areas.

And that similarity isn't entirely surprising.

Cucumbertree and yellow-poplar are relatives.

Cucumbertree and Yellow-Poplar: Cousins in the Lumber Pile

This may be one of the most interesting comparisons in our series.

Yellow-poplar and cucumbertree both belong to the magnolia family. Their lumber can be similar enough in appearance and working characteristics that cucumbertree has historically been associated commercially with yellow-poplar lumber.

Both can be relatively light.

Both generally have straight grain.

Both are diffuse-porous hardwoods.

Both machine readily.

Both can display greenish, olive, brown, and other unusual coloration.

If we have leaves, flowers, fruit, and bark, separating the trees isn't particularly difficult.

Give us nothing but a rough board, however, and the challenge becomes much greater.

That is exactly the kind of identification problem that makes working at a sawmill such an interesting education in wood.

How Hard Is Cucumbertree?

Cucumbertree fits comfortably into our practical category of lighter, softer eastern hardwoods.

Its Janka hardness is approximately 550 pounds-force.

That puts it remarkably close to yellow-poplar.

Our comparison now looks like this:

• Quaking Aspen: approximately 350 lbf
• Basswood: approximately 410 lbf
• Bigtooth Aspen: approximately 420 lbf
• Yellow-Poplar: approximately 540 lbf
• Cucumbertree: approximately 550 lbf

That 540 versus 550 comparison is striking.

Yellow-poplar and cucumbertree aren't simply botanical relatives whose lumber happens to look somewhat similar. Their average hardness is also remarkably close.

How Heavy Is It?

Cucumbertree is also relatively lightweight.

Dried lumber averages roughly 30 pounds per cubic foot, placing it close to yellow-poplar at approximately 29 pounds per cubic foot.

Again, our two magnolia-family woods are remarkably similar.

Compare that with basswood and quaking aspen at roughly 26 pounds per cubic foot and we're beginning to develop another useful mental scale.

When you handle lumber every day, a few pounds per cubic foot may eventually become something your hands notice before your mind consciously identifies it.

Working With Cucumbertree

Cucumbertree has generally good working characteristics.

Its relatively low density and usually straight grain make it easy to saw and machine compared with many harder eastern hardwoods.

It can be planed, shaped, drilled, turned, glued, and worked with hand tools without excessive difficulty.

As always, sharp tools improve the surface and reduce tearing or fuzzy fibers.

Its softness also means finished surfaces can dent more readily than oak, maple, hickory, or other harder hardwoods.

What About Carving?

At approximately 550 lbf on the Janka scale, cucumbertree is certainly soft enough to carve comfortably with sharp tools.

It won't replace basswood as the classic choice for extremely fine carving, but its relatively straight grain and moderate softness can make it pleasant for larger carvings, shaping, patterns, decorative details, and general hand-tool work.

Once again, our series is demonstrating that hardness alone doesn't determine carve-ability.

Basswood remains special because of the combination of softness, fine texture, uniform structure, and the clean way its fibers respond to a sharp cutting edge.

Oil and the Colors in Cucumbertree

This is an area I want to continue observing personally.

An oil finish generally makes wood appear richer and deeper because it changes the way light interacts with the surface. Pale areas become warmer, while darker heartwood and mineral coloration may become more pronounced.

With cucumbertree, that raises some interesting questions because of the greenish and purplish areas I've seen in the lumber.

How much will an oil finish emphasize those colors?

And perhaps more interestingly, what happens several years later?

Wood color changes with oxidation and exposure to light. A color that is vivid when a board is freshly cut may become muted, brown, amber, or otherwise altered as the wood ages.

Since I already have air-dried cucumbertree lumber in my woodshop, this gives me an opportunity to keep watching.

That may eventually lead to an update to this article based not on a laboratory test, but on something equally useful to a woodworker: a piece of wood that has actually been sitting in the shop for years.

Finishing Cucumbertree

Cucumbertree can be finished naturally, stained, or painted.

Its relatively subtle grain means an oil finish will not normally create the dramatic figure we associate with curly maple or highly figured walnut, but interesting natural coloration can give individual boards plenty of character.

As with yellow-poplar, staining should be tested first. Differences between sapwood, heartwood, and naturally colored areas may influence the final result.

And sometimes the best approach may be simply to let the wood be what it is.

If a board contains beautiful green, olive, brown, or purple coloration, hiding all of that beneath a uniform stain may mean covering up the very characteristic that made the board interesting.

Traditional and Commercial Uses

Cucumbertree wood has historically been used for many of the same practical purposes as yellow-poplar.

Uses have included:

• furniture,
• cabinet components,
• interior woodwork,
• boxes and crates,
• veneer,
• pallets,
• utility lumber,
• and other interior wood products.

Its light weight, workability, and availability made it a useful lumber species even if it never achieved the name recognition of walnut, cherry, oak, or maple.

A Wood That Can Hide Under Another Name

Cucumbertree provides another lesson about lumber names.

Because its wood is so similar to yellow-poplar in appearance and properties, cucumbertree lumber has sometimes entered commerce along with yellow-poplar rather than being treated as a completely separate specialty wood.

From a commercial standpoint, that may make perfect sense.

From the perspective of someone trying to learn individual species, however, it makes the identification challenge much more interesting.

A board that appears to be "poplar" may have come from yellow-poplar.

Or perhaps it came from cucumbertree.

Without seeing the original tree, we may have to become wood detectives.

Look at the End Grain

When color, weight, and surface grain aren't enough, end grain becomes increasingly important.

Cucumbertree is diffuse porous, meaning its vessels are relatively small and distributed throughout the growth ring rather than concentrated into a band of large earlywood pores.

Yellow-poplar is also diffuse porous.

So even under magnification, distinguishing the two can require considerably more care than separating either one from an oak or ash board.

This is another reason I like combining many clues rather than searching for one magical identification feature.

Where did the log come from?

What bark remains?

How heavy is the board?

How hard does it feel?

What colors are present?

How does it machine?

What does the end grain show?

Each answer adds another piece of evidence.

Our Softer Eastern Hardwoods Comparison

We now have four groups of wood in our growing identification library:

• Basswood: approximately 410 lbf; about 26 lb/ft³; pale, fine textured, remarkably good carving wood; I've noticed freshly cut lumber becoming more yellow-brown after exposure.
• Quaking Aspen: approximately 350 lbf; about 26 lb/ft³; very pale and soft; some freshly cut boards can produce extraordinary amounts of fuzzy fiber when planed.
• Bigtooth Aspen: approximately 420 lbf; another light, soft aspen whose lumber is often grouped commercially with quaking aspen.
• Yellow-Poplar: approximately 540 lbf; about 29 lb/ft³; easy working; cream, yellow, brown, olive, and sometimes striking green coloration.
• Cucumbertree: approximately 550 lbf; about 30 lb/ft³; closely related to yellow-poplar; I've noticed areas of light green and occasionally purplish coloration in freshly cut lumber.

The last two are particularly interesting.

If a board is around the same weight, around the same hardness, similarly textured, diffuse porous, easy to machine, and has some green coloration, separating yellow-poplar from cucumbertree based solely on the lumber may not always be easy.

Sometimes the most accurate answer may be:

"I think I know what this is, but I need another clue."

There is nothing wrong with that.

Good wood identification is about accumulating evidence, not forcing certainty from one characteristic.

The Value of Watching Wood Age

Cucumbertree has also reminded me of another way to learn wood.

Don't just study the board today.

Look at it tomorrow.

Look at it after it air dries.

Plane it again.

Cut into the interior and compare the newly exposed wood with the older surface.

Put oil on a piece.

Then look at it a year later.

Wood is not visually static. Oxygen, ultraviolet light, moisture loss, finishes, and time all influence its appearance.

That means a woodshop containing lumber that has been stored for years is also a laboratory.

Some of the answers to our questions may already be sitting on the lumber rack.

A Magnolia Hiding in the Lumber Pile

Cucumbertree may not be one of the first species people name when they think about eastern hardwood lumber.

But it deserves attention.

It is a large native magnolia capable of becoming a genuine timber tree. Its unusual cucumber-like fruit gives the species its name. Its lumber is light, soft, workable, and closely resembles that of its relative, yellow-poplar.

And occasionally, inside an otherwise ordinary-looking board, we may find those subtle green, olive, or purplish colors that make us stop and look again.

That's when an anonymous piece of lumber starts becoming something more.

We begin seeing the tree that produced it.

And perhaps that is the real purpose of learning our woods.

The more closely we look at lumber, the more of the original tree we begin to see.