It’s quite eye catching right now. Along roadsides, with no leaves on its branches, but lavender trumpet shaped flowers contrasting with the newly emerged leaves of the trees that surround the Paulownia tomentosa.

Native to eastern and central China. Here is it a fast growing exotic invasive which generally wins in competition against native plants.

The tree grows to between 35 and 80 feet, with leaves that are heart-shaped that can be mighty large, 6 to 16 inches across. Or, perhaps larger. See the image above? That’s the toe of my boot on the lower right. And that’s a Paulownia leaf just above it. One mighty large leaf.