What kind of tree is this?

[Bob Wills]

I've moved into an older house in Austin and noticed this tree the other day. The height of the tree is about 15-20 feet and before I looked up and noticed the large leaves, I thought the green stalk was just some sort of bamboo.

Sorry for the fuzzy image -- only had the camera phone available at the time. The bottom left image is a zoom of a leaf and the bottom right is a zoom of the slender green trunk.

Chinese Parasol?

 

[Uninformed]

I have no clue (see username), but it looks like a fig leaf.

 

[Mrmyke709]

Looks like a variety of catalpa tree.
Should have big white blooms.

 

[Uninformed]

So was it a fig tree?

 

[Bob Wills]

I still have no idea. I'll take some better pics tomorrow and post them. The weirdest part of the tree is the trunk -- it shoots up about 15 feet like a thick, green bamboo stalk.

 

[pasotex]

the larch

 

[Bob Wills]

I took some better pics -- any ideas? By the way, these leaves are fairly large -- some are over a foot in width.

 

[LITNIN HORN]

I think fig is the right answer, and the reason it is so tall is it is seeking sunlight through the other growth.

 

[NickDanger]

That's a catalpa. It's an ornamental tree that grows like a weed. That one may not have even been there last year. You could cut it back to the roots in my experience and it will grow right back. They are very Dr. Suess'ish imo. I don't care for them personally, but to each his own. I doubt you can very easily find a place to buy one and it's not because it's some rare jewel or anything.

 

[LITNIN HORN]

Sorry Nick...that is definitely not a catalpa. Their leaves are heart shaped, not irregular. I know this because I had one in my front yard for thirty years and had to do the raking.

 

[NickDanger]

No need to apologize. That's just what someone told me a catalpa was. It's still an ugly tree from where I sit.

 

[TexasEd]

It looks like it could be a fig. Can you pull a leaf off and see if a white milky liquid comes out?

 

[J.R.69]

Not fig......fig leaves have only 3 "fingers" and the trunk is woody and has bark. I've seen the tree in question before, but for the life of me I can't remember its name. If it's the one I'm remembering, it produces poisonous fruit/seeds.

 

[LITNIN HORN]

There are many varieties of fig trees. Some of them have an unbroken leaf, with no "fingers" at all, some have three, some as many as five. Most of the figs I've seen also have smooth bark, similar to the photo above. This includes the one in my back yard. I know there is one called the 'strangler' fig that has a rougher bark, and likes to wrap itself around other trees, eventually sucking the life out of them.

 

[zzzz]

I suggest you ask Wonder Woman. She appears to have wrapped her Golden Lasso around it.

 

[Bob Wills]

I'm still leaning towards chinese parasol...but I'm about as far as it gets from being considered an arborist.

 

[CanaTigers]

Looks like a varnish tree.

 

[Mrmyke709]

In reply to:

---

---

 

[TexasEd]

Can you pull a leaf off to see if it leaks a milk like liquid?

 

[J.R.69]

Yes....castor is the one I was thinking of. That's what it looks like to me.

 

[Uninformed]

The picture below is a castor bean.