"Terry Coombs" writes:

Amos Nomore wrote:
On 2017-01-15 22:39:30 +0000, David E. Ross said:

Location: Southern California, Sunset zone 21, US Department of
Agriculture zone 10b

Photo: http://www.rossde.com/test/Lindas_tree.jpg

My friend asked me to help her identify this tree. It is growing at
the house she recently bought. Note the clusters of small purple
berries. It does not look familiar to me. Is it familiar to anyone
else?

It looks like an elderberry.

It's definitely not an elderberry . Tree is way too big , and the berry
clusters are the wrong shape .

One look and I thought elderberry.
Mainly from the distinctive fruit.

I haven't seen one in more than 50 years.
We had a stand of bushes, so they didn't look like that
tree, but I just checked Wikipedia and they cite trees 15 meters
(or 49 ft.) tall. The leaf shape matches.
So I'd still guess elderberry. In this case in tree form
possibly because it's in California.

--
Dan Espen