Yes - it looks like contorted hazel to me too. And it's been badly hacked about by somebody.

Jennifratrix, you took the words right out of my mouth. At first I thought "dang" then I realized I should be proud that there are others that know about the plants you mentioned. As far as native persimmons go, not many people are aware that there are seedless cultivars available from Nolin River nursery and others. Oriental persimmons are great and can be pretty large. You can find seedless and non-astringent varieties of those too. These can be eaten while firm as an apple, just wait for them to turn orange so they will have developed sweetness. I have discovered that the best time to eat maypops (passionfruit) is November, December, Janurary. The outside will be shriveled and brown but the pulp will be sweet and you eat seeds and all. A few more fruits to try are jujube, mulberry, pomegranate, and Chinese che (cudrania tricuspidata). You can also eat the fruit of cactus which of all things is called tuna. You very carefully remove the glochids then chill them and eat seeds and all. They taste like watermelon. The kiwi come in two types. Let's just say the fuzzy and the fuzzless. There are also two type of edible fruit dogwood you can grow: cornus kousa and cornus mas. Hidden Springs nursery in Tennessee has several of the fruits mentioned. About the pineapple guava, they are perfectly hardy here and the fruit and the flowers are delicious. That leaves crabapple, mayhaw and plums which will feed you and wildlife and make excellent jelly. Here is a link that might be useful: BittersweetGardens.Com

Carol - Fragrance - very very faint. I always have trouble smelling much scent on tea roses. Smells just like my DdB, which is the only other tea I have blooming right now - I compared them. Kim- what about the fact that it is climbing? HMF says odorata grows to 1 or 2 feet tall. Also, a bit of new data - when I just went out to smell the blooms, some of the closed very dark pink buds from yesterday have partially opened, and now look way more like some of the pictures on HMF of partially open blooms which have very dark pink petals remaining on the outside of the bloom, while the inside petals are white. Jackie

Oh, and to be clear - the tree I’m trying to identify is the one in the middle of that photo at the top. The ones behind it are brush cherries, which serve to screen my yard. I can’t seem to ID my tree from any of the online databases - alternate leaves, fruit that’s kind of like a capsule and twin-lobed ... and the thinnest trunk I’ve seen for such a tall bushy-topped tree!