Hey guys, I was wondering what species of bow woods are acceptable to leaving the bark on the back?

Plum trees you can.

Thank you.

I've seen cherry backing that still has the bark on, but other than that I'm not real familiar with that style of bows.

Very few barks should be left on a bows back. The cherry bark backings you see are usually added later. I have seen some plum bows and one hickory bow with the bark(inner bark only for the hickory) left on . Generally most barks are not strong enough in tension and will split under stress and the splits will travel down into the bow wood.

hazel is good if its a young sapling and the bark is thin..some bark will do good out to a certain draw then they start to crack..

Osage saplings with bark left on non-working portion of handle