Larry Blanchard wrote in message ...
In article ,
says...
One other little bit of information about birch that you may or may
not know is that "red pine" is just the heartwood sorted out of white
birch. Jana

Interesting. I'm in Washington and the local birch has white sapwood
and brown heartwood. I'd never seen reddish birch till the other day,
when I went to Windsor Plywood (the only hardwood store in Spokane) and
theirs was reddish. I asked the manager and he said it was all shipped
in - one time it'd be red, next time brown. And he had no control over
what he got.

So I drove 80 miles to Colville, a much smaller town, which for some
strange reason seems capable of supporting a hardwood store. It's
Corbett & Speirs, and they've been there for several years. I keep
trying to get them to open a branch in Spokane :-). Anyway, they had
lots of locally cut birch and not a reddish tint in the bunch.

So our birch must be a different variety than what you're used to
seeing.

Hi Larry, One possibility could easily be the region where it grew.
I know the soil can have a lot to do with the tone the lumber has.
Here in the Midwest, where the soil is rich and black, the grain tends
to be more true compared to where the soil is red, such as out East.
That's why all the veneer buyers are after the walnut and cherry that
grows here. That, along with, the tight growth rings. On the other
hand, I can't say I know everything. Jana