Tulip Tree, Magnoliaceae Liriodendron tulipifera

That's a Tulip Poplar. The Great Smokey Mountains National Park has quite a few sections where these get over 6 ft around and up to 100ft high. Cove Mountain tower and Caney Fork Motor trail are two places I've seen them that big. We're still a week away from the colors turning here.

Commonly know as the Yellow Poplar, sorry I'd forgotten common names differ from botantical ones, although it is a member of the magnolia family...

Interestingly, I don't remember ever seeing the tulip flowers on the tree. And it's in a place I visit pretty often.

Interestingly, I don't remember ever seeing the tulip flowers on the tree. And it's in a place I visit pretty often.

You must be thinking of Magnolia x soulangeana, it has the big purplish red flowers that come out before the leaves, most people call that the Tulip Tree, cause they look like tulips and it blooms in mid-spring. I have a photo in the photo gallery of the flowers, check it out, see if that's the one...the yellow poplar has smllish greenishyellow flowers you'd probably wouldn't notice...:)

Nah, that's a magnolia. :-) Different leaves and different shape of crown and different bark. I know I've seen trees with little (two inches in height, app. so in diameter) green-yellow tulip-like flowers. But the tree I picked the leaf from is not one of them. AFAICR. And the ones I saw had horizontally ribbed flowers. Or was it pods ... Now I'm regretting for not studying biology. :-)

That's one, of 21 different varieties of magnolia...Don't worry about it, you went, you saw, you got a leaf that's cool, including the trans map (thank you madmax), be joyful, life is good. I saved all the leaves plus the ones I have from around here (Colorado), now, what to do with all these leaves?...:-)

BTW, I knew Algebra was going to bite me in the a** one day, and since I've been doing 3D, I wished I'd paid more attention in school...:-)

One of these days, I'm going to visit the Botanical Gardens and pick some really exotic thing like Gingko.

Gingko, have some of them, they were all over the grounds when I worked for the government. They have to be some of the coolest leaves around...look really strange when the wind caught them, because of the leaf shape, looked like the whole tree was having a seizure...:-)