Scratching my head on this one...

[Rich @ C Trees]

This is a mature tree, recently partially collapsed.

Height: 6m

Single stout bole, several wide-spreading and heavily twisted boughs.

Bark: grey, rough, thick, heavily fissured.

Wood: pale buff; heartwood darker but no distinctive colour. No odour.

Buds: single but arise in partial whorls of three. Middle bud arises on opposite side to preceding middle bud. Indistinct, small and purple-brown. Distinctive leaf-scars: pale with dark rim.

Leaves: not fully out yet. Deciduous, smooth margin, flushing coppery / red, quickly turning green, lance shaped. At first, leaf bases are asymmetrical (like elm) but soon become symmetrical.

Twigs: bark smooth, grey. Wood pithy with no smell.

I've rejected: oak, walnut, tree of heaven, various Acers, golden rain tree, Catalpa, Kentucky coffee tree.

Help!!!

[kev7937]

Paulonia ?

[MATTMOSS]

Some sort of pear? Pyrus?

[Yournamehere]

Hmm!

If no odour, then Catalpa bignonioides, my first thought, is out as you say.

Paulownia was my second choice, Rushforth says, "current season's shoots are pithy"

But neither Paulownia nor C. big. have deeply fissured bark.

However Catalpa speciosa - Western or Northern Catalpa has:

Bark: deep ridges; Leaf: longer and deeply heart-shaped, scentless. (Johnson and More).

[Yournamehere]

PS

Duh! Paulownia comes into flower before the leaves appear!

There is one in flower just beyond Haslemere High Street, drove past it last week!

[MATTMOSS]

This ones had me scratchin my head for sure.

However i like a challenge.

 

I think its.......

 

Syringa vulgaris

 

lilac

[Rich @ C Trees]

Hi All. Very many thanks for your good suggestions. Particularly liked Mattmoss' suggestion as it's always good to think outside the box - we can get too blinkered in our thinking sometimes. However, I'm going along with C. speciosa as my second guess was C. bignonioides but the heartwood was the wrong colour and smell. It's a shame as the tree is on a development site, has partially collapsed and is scheduled for removal. So it goes...

[Gary Prentice]

This ones had me scratchin my head for sure.

However i like a challenge.

 

I think its.......

 

Syringa vulgaris

 

lilac

 

Lilac usually has a distinct milk-chocolate brown heartwood and paler creamy sapwood ( turns nice if you can find it big enough), but the bark is very similar

[se7enthdevil]

give me a pic of the wood and i might be able to help.

 

is it ring porous or not???

[MATTMOSS]

Hi All. Very many thanks for your good suggestions. Particularly liked Mattmoss' suggestion as it's always good to think outside the box - we can get too blinkered in our thinking sometimes. However, I'm going along with C. speciosa as my second guess was C. bignonioides but the heartwood was the wrong colour and smell. It's a shame as the tree is on a development site, has partially collapsed and is scheduled for removal. So it goes...

 

Ok I wouldn't disagree.

Its good to improve your knowledge looking up these posts!

Especially when you live in Oldham and there isn't as much variety.