[ID]Mystery Tree

[FigKiller]

My son recently moved on to a property near Bellingen (inland from Coff's Harbour, NSW). Among the many varieties of tree were these oddities. I very much doubt that they'd make a good bonsais. (That's just a challenge to get you interested.) The most noticeable feature of the trees is their huge leaves. My first picture is of some small seedlings (or maybe suckers? There are none anywhere else.) The second picture is of a single leaf on one of these; the small silver dot is a 20cent piece.
Next comes a shot of two trees; the one at the left back is not one of them. It has a kookaburra sitting in it, which gives some vague idea of the size of the others. Also, you can see the bark is slightly rough but is a bit greener than appears on the photo. Lastly, a clump of 5. The post in the left foreground is about .3m high. The kookaburra is still there.
A neighbour said the trees were 'palamino' or something; I've checked every possible pronunciation variation I can think of but nothing comes up. We are also told that another neighbour once had a plantation of them; they are apparently good timber.
A final thought now I can't see them any more. You might notice lots of dead branches in the tops of the trees. I think the live branches like these have more 'normal' sized leaves and that the large leaves are on quite small branches close to the trunk.
Please don't go to any trouble on this. My son is also searching.
Finally, sorry about the sequence of the pictures. I'll know better next time.

[rowan]

I think they are Paulownia trees. About twenty years ago someone thought they might make good timber trees but the timber is sh*t and they didn't take off. They have beautiful purple flowers. The leaves will be soft if they are paulownia.

[FigKiller]

Thanks a million for that info, Rowan. Paulownia sounds like Palamino - near enough. I really like the pronunciation Paul-own-ya; my name is Paul.
There are at least two places in Oz where people are growing and promoting it as excellent timber. (??) It seems to be incredibly fast growing so I might try to bonsai one. It shouldn't take more than 20 years to get the leaves down to a few cm.

[rowan]

About 20 or so years ago when they were promoting them as a plantation tree I was doing a forestry course and we had to do some research on the viability of them for timber. Our findings were that they were mostly useless and the timber is too soft for most uses, and believe me, we done a heap of tests. The wood is even worse under plantation conditions. The companies that are still promoting them now are investment companies that sell plantations to city buyers as tax write-offs and such. There are no timber companies in Australia that will actually touch it.

Anyway... I really don't thing the leaves will reduce much even after twenty years but I would love to see your results if you do try.

[Joel]

I believe the leaves are VERY difficult to reduce. It is also grown for paper. And growing quick is an understatement!

Joel