I recently collected a fair quantity of dried beech and catkin mast as it showed great promise for tinder. I had a go with the fire steel but noticed that although it very quickly took and could be blown into a powerful glow it didn't progress to flame and merely smouldered strongly. This gave me another idea so I lined the centre of a dry grass 'nest' with the mast and transferred an ember from the bowdrill which instantly spread rapidly through the mast and ignited the dry grass incredibly quickly. I would have ordinarily discarded it after initial attempts but will now collect for this very purpose in future 
