08/10/2026
I recently picked up a thick piece of walnut lumber from Mitch Shaw at Shaw’s Cut & Dried, and it turned out to be taken from the crotch of the tree, where two major limbs diverged. Crotch walnut is known for its dramatic grain patterns, but this board has an even more unusual feature: the tree had encapsulated fallen walnuts inside the crotch as it grew.
You can clearly see where walnuts accumulated in the junction of the limbs and were gradually surrounded by new growth. As the tree expanded, the cambium layer enclosed the nuts just as it would any foreign object caught in a growth pocket. When I cut the board in half, additional embedded walnuts became visible farther down the old crotch, confirming that this pocket collected debris over multiple seasons.
This kind of natural inclusion is rare in milled lumber. It provides insight into how the tree responded to obstructions and creates a distinctive internal structure that can influence both the appearance and the working characteristics of the wood.
