In article , Howd E.
Doodat ? writes
The main stem/trunk is about 2" in diameter, woody at the base but
quickly becoming green about a foot or 2 up from the bottom.
About every foot or so are 3 "branches" radiating from the trunk at
roughly 120 degrees. These "branches" each terminate in a single leaf.

I take it that these are the petioles (leaf-stalks) and laminae (leaf-
blades). Leaves in whorls of 3 should be helpful in identifying the
plant.

The leaf has a shape something like gum, but the lobes are not as
pronounced. The leaf is fuzzy on the bottom side, and the top tends
toward shininess although it also has a slight fuzz. It's pea green on
top and lighter on the bottom.

By gum you mean sweet gum (Liquidambar) and not Eucalyptus?


Now here is the clue that makes this tree unique: most of its leaves
are in excess of 20" across!

Now, you'd think that I could come up with something real quick on
the net to identify this critter with no problem. WRONG!
Almost every damned "plant identification" site is nothing but a
bunch of pictures. I guess you're supposed to look at them until you
see something that you can say "Hey! That's the one!" to. I couldn't
find one single site in which you could taxonomically zero in on an
ID. Is there such a place?

Thonner's Analytical Key to the Families of Flowering Plants is online
at

http://home.iae.nl/users/linea/

You could try this, but you'd probably find too many branches at which
you don't have the data to select either branch of the key. (Like when
it comes to a flower character.)

The key at

http://www.hort.uconn.edu/plants/key...treekey01.html

takes us to Catalpa, but that doesn't seem like a match to me.

Anyway, I thought I'd try and see if I would have any luck here.


--
Stewart Robert Hinsley