An old English word meaning “made from the tree”. Obviously this would include everything from toothpicks to the largest wooden ships. Edward Pinto, scholar of English treen narrowed the definition to “objects no larger than a spinning wheel”. Still during the “age of wood” the variety of objects produced in this narrowed definition was vast.
I work within a further narrowing of the definition
“treen for the table, food preparation, and related articles”.
Sometimes referred to as knots, warts, cancers, tumors, and in Europe as burrs, they are abnormal growths that sometimes form on and protrude from the trunks and branches of trees.
It is believed that burls form on trees because of viruses and as a reaction to environmental conditions. They are often found on several trees in proximity to each other, while trees in an adjacent area with similar growing conditions will have none. I have seen this in cherry and maple woods of Indiana where I live, and also in the black ash swamps of the far north.
Irregular cell growth within the burl results in burl wood having intertwined - twisted grain and in some species [particularly black ash] “eyes”.
In general, this results in burl wood being more durable, attractive, and resistant to splitting than straight- grained trunk wood.
It is easy to see what, in the distant past, must have been one of the initial attractions of using a burl for a vessel. Some burls form in a natural bowl shape. When using a burl considerably less work would have been required for shaping the exterior of the bowl, especially for cultures using Stone Age tools, as were the Native Americans before the arrival of the Europeans.
It should be noted that while many do, not all burl have this symmetrical shape.
I stress at this point that burls are an abnormality of nature. Like cancers they have abnormal properties, and to work with them one must recognize and seek to understand these properties.
There are references to the spiritual significance of the burl to the Native Americans, that they saw fertility, life, and spirit in the burl on the tree. And that this spirit stayed with the object made from the burl.
I have a deep respect for nature and the spirit of creation. When I walk in a frozen black ash burl swamp, see burl such as the ones pictured, or study a burl to see what it will let me make from it, I realize that each burl has a unique life. And that the unique nature of each burl is preserved in the individual pieces of burl treen.
BLACK ASH [Fraxinus nigra]
Black ash is a slow growing tree of northern swampy woodlands. Its range of growth is from New England and adjacent Southern Canada westward through the Great Lakes region to Eastern Minnesota. Click on map at left.
Not white ash of baseball bats and tool handles, black ash, a species for which present day society has found little or no commercial use.
Burls form on many species of trees, cherry, maple, elm, spruce, oak, etc. and it is thought that they were more abundant in the original uncut forest of North America than they are today.
Although we do not know when, it was surely in ancient times when the Native Americans, possibly for spiritual reasons or because of a natural bowl shape, first began using burls in the manufacture of their treen.
And as generally happens when man works with natural materials, the Native Americans craftsmen, through time, learned of the properties of one species of burl that deemed it far more suitable for making burl treen than any of the others.
Estimates are that as much as 90% of the surviving burl treen, Native American or Colonial, is from this one species*, black ash. Cherry, maple, and elm make up the remaining percentage.
Although the range of the black ash tree appears large on a map, it only grows in swamps and wet areas within this range. And only some of these areas will contain trees that have burls.
Growing in these wet conditions, black ash was certainly not the most convenient burl to harvest. What little black ash burl that is harvested today is done in the winter when the swamps are frozen. Was that the procedure in the past?
Cherry, maple, and elm burl, which make up only 10% of the surviving burl treen, were surely as abundant as black ash. They are much more so today. And these species grow on dry ground that is accessible year round.
One of the more interesting aspects of my studies is [re]discovering why black ash burl was the overwhelming choice for craftsmen from two vastly different cultures, over a period of centuries, using completely different processes for making treen. There is one consideration that I have not seen discussed, and it would only be known by someone working with black ash burl. I have my thoughts and will continue to explore their reasoning.
Interestingly, Native Americans also used the straight- grained wood from the trunks of black ash trees for making splint baskets. By pounding a section of the trunk the wood separated at the growth rings. They cut narrow splints from the separated layers and wove fine baskets.
It is said that the Shakers, whose baskets are also held in high esteem, learned this process from the Native Americans.
Two historical uses for the black ash tree.
* Powers, North American Burl Treen, 2005
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