I noticed that when I attempted to harvest wood with an iron hatchet that I was striking the tree but I was not accumulating any wood/branches.
I changed to iron pick and harvested ironstone from a ironstone node and then went back to the iron hatchet and struck the same tree and was able to harvest wood/branches.
This happened a couple of times during my last gaming session.
This took place near/in Sepermeru.
EDIT: I had a similar situation using the Mitraen Ankh. I tested the following. I tried to use the ankh but could not harvest. I then switched to holding another tool (iron pick) and then switched back to ankh and I could harvest. This is different than my first test as I did not actually try to harvest anything with the iron pick. I just switched from the ankh to the pick and then back to the ankh and it started working as it should.