This group of trees with lemon-yellow-coloured new leaves in front of a downtown condo building was so striking on a fairly grey day. I wonder if I'm just not recognizing something very common, without any flowers or even flower buds to go on. I don't even know if this is a healthy spring colour, or if the leaves will turn green. Google street view was done in the winter: 811 Helmcken St - Google Maps. The leaves feel very soft, but they are not hairy.
My first impression was Quercus, maybe Q. agrifolia, by shape and rolling of young leaves. But the color is strange. Really interesting find!
Superb tree...not a clue what it is. Surely Quercus agrifolia leaves are nothing like mystery tree...nor are they on spurs. Quercus agrifolia On UBC link above someone descibed it as like Holly with acorns!
There is no point to compare young leaves with old leaves. They have too different properties. I didn't say, that this IS a Quercus. That was just my first impression, based on the leaf shape and how young Q. robur leaves look like just after emerging - they are light yellowish green, with rolled edges and soft. Not at all like they will be later, when they have already acorns. A leaf of a Q. agrifolia has this shape: Plants of Southern California: Quercus agrifolia varieties Pretty similar to Wendy's sample (just by shape).
As seen in another post by Wendy, oaks are just leafing up in the region. On the last photo in this message there is visible the yellowish green tone of young Q. rubra leaves: Appreciation: - Big old Quercus rubra on the old Woodlands School site Not as light as the mystery tree, for sure, but the colorite kind of resembles.
Besides, frost bitten oak leaves in spring may turn whitish. These leaves on Wendy's photos don't look like frost bitten, but the color is very similar, what my oaks looked like a few years ago after hard frost. See this photo of frost damage on an Quercus agrifolia: Live Oak Freeze Damage
These are magnolias. I had typed in my original posting that I thought the branching reminded me of magnolia, but I looked up Kobus magnolia, which looked like it had different leaves, and there were no petals around, except from a different magnolia, so I deleted that comment. But I saw a group with the same leaves this morning, which I remember are magnolias, next to the well-photographed 'Akebono' cherries at Burrard Station, usually in bloom when the cherries are, and I'm usually trying to keep them out of the cherry photos. I thought they were M. kobus, but I'll see what I can dig up.
In 2009, Joseph Lin posted the magnolias as M. kobus: Downtown Here is a photo from 2015 - the magnolias are on the right edge, and I stood on the round platform at the bottom right to look at the leaves this morning. I don't have a camera or anything valuable with me on my morning trips here, so I can't demonstrate yet that these leaves are the same.
Here are the leaves from this morning's find at Art Phillips Park, which is also Burrard (Skytrain) Station. These are supposed to be Magnolia kobus. I'm not certain that they're exactly the same, but I think they are pretty closely related. Then I saw this small tree on my way home, at Barclay Heritage Square, a residential park owned by the city, so planted and maintained by the Parks Board. These leaves are smaller, but they look similar to me and have a similar arrangement. Again, I think they are not exactly the same but are closely related. I thought I could possibly find posted photos in which it shows up, but no such luck. The closest I could get is this: Barclay Manor - Google Maps
For comparison, here is a block of Magnolia kobus street trees, so named in the city's database. I think these do look like the Burrard Station trees, are somewhat heftier than the trees in the original posting.
Here is M. x soulangiana, as named by Vancouver Archives, in the photo at Magnolia X soulangiana [Museum of Vancouver] - City of Vancouver Archives. This is later-blooming, with just a few flowers remaining. It has some fruits developing. I don't think this is the same as any of the others, except in the branching, the bark, and the general appearance of the leaves.
Here, though, is one that might be the same as what I posted for ID. There are three or so of these in the courtyard of a friend's condominium. My friend took the third photo on April 2 this year. So, maybe Magnolia × loebneri?