I have not had any luck in identifying this large shrub or small tree found on the Oberlin College campus in Tappen Square. The attached pictures were taken on May 31, 2008. The plant was about 12-16 feet tall as shown in the image. I would also like to know if there are any good web sites that would allow me to identify plants using pictures. That is of course in addition to this fine resource.
Thanks for the lightning quick responses! I really appreciate your help. I will check out the links and stay tuned for any others that appear in this thread.
Regarding the links in post #4: I was able to identify the Fringe Plant from the photo index at missouriplants.com. One for one isn’t bad. The second link seems like a great resource if you have already identified the plant and want additional general information. The alabamaplants.com site is a mirror of the first link customized for plants in Alabama. I didn’t find the Fringe plant there suggesting that Alabama is out of its range. I thought I might get lucky and find a "www.ohioplants.com" site, but it doesn’t exist. Maybe some time in the future. Again thanks for the references.
Just to comment on the links - missouriplants rates very highly, fully recommended. But about-dot-com is a revolting pop-up and spam generator (as well as often full of errors), definitely one to avoid.