I went out hiking w/ my dad the other weekend and we had our edible plants books, and were hiking along a trail and saw this plant (picture below) i realized i had one in front of my house but i don't know what it is. At first i thought it was a sunflower plant of some sort but it isn't. Heres a little info from my observations: The stem is hollow like bamboo but not as strong The stem is hairy The leafs feel almost velvety This plant is 6' tall, but i have seen them taller (15'-20') Leafs are opposing, and probably a foot in length I tried googling the description and nothing was coming up. All help is appreciated.
Think it may be Paulownia tomentosa. see http://images.google.com/imgres?img...microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7SUNA&sa=N In your area it is considered an invasive tree.See http://www.mdinvasivesp.org/archived_invaders/archived_invaders_2007_05.html
If it is a Paulownia tomentoas you'll want to act quickly. The empress get BIG and grows fast. It's a beautiful trees with purple panicles of upright flowers (if I recall correctly). I'm concerned that the tree is in the wrong place and will continue to grown in that narrow space between the walkway and your building. We had an empress removed from my building's courtyard about 3 years ago. I'm still finding sprouts from the roots!
wow so that green stalky plant is a tree. thanks for the help. i'll have to remove it, i don't know how it got there. How long does it take for the green stalk to look more like a tree trunk (brown w/ bark)? Also does anyone know if anything on this plant is edible.
Errr ... very fast!!! Never heard of any parts of it that are edible. http://www.paulowniasupply.com/index.htm
They grow very fast and nothing is edible. It will have a trunk and the purple panicles are pretty but they really don't last long and don't have a good odor. But each to his own.
