Tennesse Tree

[oakiemac]

Went to Tennessee and saw a tree,
Never seen one quite like this,
It had big ole leafs that you couldn't miss,
'bout 18" long, 9" wide, these leaves would make a good cover of a book,
Climbed under a water fall to have a closer look,
Bark was smooth and sliverly on a bore of small size,
Too small for the mill, not much good I did surmize,
The leaves sure were of interest as they would leave Dumbo jealous,
When Hana asked what name this tree was called,
I said I didn't know but would ask the FF fellas!
So if you know, please don't withold, give us all a clue,
Such an odd little tree, not many would know her name only the few.

[Texas Ranger]

Sounds like the Empress Tree.  Paulonia.

[Tom]

Paulownia would be my guess too.  It got loose in the Appalachians and can be found almost anywhere.   There are lots of them on the road right-of-ways. 

[SwampDonkey]

JeffB has worked with aspen and probably walked in areas where aspen was harvested lots of time. I bet he can tell ya that the leaves of some of them new root suckered trees can have some very large leaves as well. Maybe not 18 " long, but I bet 12 inches long and 8 inches wide can be found. It's not real common though. ;D

[oakiemac]

Hmmm...,
Well maybe tomorrow I'll post a picture.

[Tom]

If it happens to be an Aspen in North Carolina, it is lost.

[SwampDonkey]

Large tooth grows in the mountains of both Tennesse and North Carolina. Also seen it growing near Radford, Virginia on a rock pile in the middle of an abandoned field. ;D

[Tom]

Well, I can't argue with eyeballs. :D

[SwampDonkey]

Tom, I didn't word that quite right. I meant I seen it in Virgina, but I know you can find it in the mountains especially in those Southern Pine plantations they have in TN and NC. I traveled through alot of those areas with a friend of mine working with V-Tech and the Southern Pine Beetle. They were once nice hardwood forests and the timber company obliterated the hardwood to plant them infested pine. Dang, I can't remember the Timber company, but I remember their mill was blamed for fogging the air so bad along the highway near Knoxville, TN that it was causing car accidents on the highway. They had to raise the stacks at the mill so the fog/smog would carry beyond the highway.

[Jeff]

Donk, walked in some justa couple weeks ago and took a photo of Tammy standing in it. Certainly not as big as Paulonia, but some big honkin leaves. Good example right in front of Tammy there.  I bet that leave was around 14 or 15 inches

[SwampDonkey]

Jeff, that's the photo I had in mind. They looked like some pretty good sized leaves.

[Ernie]

Purdy purple flowers??

Pawlonia

[Timburr]

Oakie, did you compose that little ditty yourself?

[Texas Ranger]

There is always some smart aleck that spells and types better-n-me. :'(

[Phorester]

OAKIEMAC.....,

a nice little ditty
but not much info in the kitty
to tell us what tree
your find might be...

But...., leaves 18" long, 9" wide sounds like long and skinny to me..., smooth bark, small diameter trunk, in a wet area, with what you've given us so far, my first guess is that you found a paw paw, Fraser magnolia, or a bigleaf magnolia.

A picture would be best of course.  Also, where in Tennessee?

[SwampDonkey]

Oakiemac, somehow I missed the poetry. ;D :D :D

[oakiemac]

You missed the poetry??? I worked hours on that :D not really but it was fun.

Anyways I did take a couple of pictures so I will attempt to post them later on today or tomorrow.

We were in Falls Creek Falls state park about an hour and half south east of Nashville. Nice park, over 20000 acres big. Mainly Hickory-Oak forest, that must of been heavily logged before becoming a park because the average tree size was rather small. I was hoping to see some big timber but it wasn't there unless you climbed down to the river bottoms. There were some huge tulip poplar, yellow birch, beech and hemlocks. Up above most trees were white oak, hickory, some red oak, and a surpising amount of Sassafras.
I saw the trees in question pretty much all over the park. Most of them were small with a dbh of only a few inches, but I did see some bigger ones at around 6". The bark was grey and smooth like a beech. By far the most distinguishing feature was the leaves. They were huge, not pointed at the ends, smooth all the way around the leaf, not serrated. I looked at some info on Paulowina and as far as I can tell they have pointed leaves. Aspen have heart shaped leaves that are serrated. A picture is probably worth a thousand words so I will try to post a picture or two.

[SwampDonkey]

Could the leaves have been basswood??? Basswood leaves aren't huge, but they are probably 3-6 " wide and 5-9" long. I have seen suckered basswood leaves 14 " long on young shoots. Bark is smooth and grey when young but kind of striped when older. You can strip the outter bark off the trunk and make rope from it. The tree would be more inclined to grow down along the creek, they like moist rich soil.

Your right about some of those parks and national forests, they were heavily logged and often the biggest wood you see is along the creeks.

[oakiemac]

I finally found some time to post this picture.
hopefully here is a picture of the tree in question. Look familar to anyone?

[farmerdoug]

Oakiemac,  I would say it is a pawpaw tree.  I was thinking along that line but I am sure now that you have posed the pic.  I have seen them growing around here.

Farmerdoug

[SwampDonkey]

Bigleaf Magnolia Magnolia macrophylla

http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=171

[oakiemac]

I think it is a big leaf Magnolia. I noticed that they had several planted around buildings so it must flower in the spring. I think paw paw leaves are much smaller although similar in shape.

[Phorester]

Yep, you got a bigleaf.  They're also called umbrella magnolia because of the huge leaves.

[Texas Ranger]

DanG, yall beat me to it.

[Pullinchips]

Big leaf magnolia maybe?