Living The Princess Tree has a Royal Pedigree hiding a Dark Side (Harvey Cotten) Published: May. 30, 2013, 2:08 p.m. By Harvey Cotten, Huntsville Botanical Garden ...

and that it grew larger than the coast redwood. That tree turned out to be blue gum eucalyptus. The royal empress tree, a.k.a. Princess tree (Paulownia tomentosa) is, in fact, an amazing tree.

A The plant is a deciduous shade tree, Paulownia tomentosa, commonly called Empress Tree or Royal Paulownia. When it is a young tree it pops up like a Jack-in-the-box and grows like a beanstalk.

Empress tree, Royal Paulownia (Paulownia tomentosa): We see this tree in many, many pictures submitted for identification. When young, it has huge leaves. It grows rapidly as a young tree.