It was in bloom now?

If that's what could be called blooming, then yes. The pictures were taken a few days ago.

Copying URLs typed out in Message boxes here and pasting them into Google just about never works for me. If you could use the Optional Link URL slot provided (below the Message box) then I could view your picture. Chances are I would know what the tree was.

I know you'll get it bboy, common and it is on the tip of my brain but don't feel like keying it out:

None of that around here, surely.

Dan

Prunus laurocerasus 'Zabeliana' maybe?

Probably not 'Zabeliana' but definitely English laurel. Like English holly this locally over-planted species is actually a weed here, seeding out to form thickets in urban parks and other unpaved places. The more handsome Portugal laurel has also been showing a propensity for popping up.

There's a specimen of that on the UW campus but I can't dig thru my notes to find the key to the ID. I don't remember the var being that name, but I suspect if it grows in the OPs area there may be a product at a decent nursery. Lots of them around Seattle area.

Dan

Thanks guys, so this is just a Laurel that has grown for a long time and pruned to be a tree?

Here is a link that might be useful: Laurel?

There's thousands of them in the region much bigger and more tree-like than that one.

Its a particular variety of laurel; there was a brief period when a few varieties were bred. There are several vars like that in the Puget Sound region. I seem to remember some at that fort above West Point light as well and in that neighborhood.

Dan

I wouldn't be confident specimen shown was necessarily a garden selection at all.

It looks very similar to a Zabel Laurel. The only problem I have with it is that it is so tall. Zabel Laurel grows much wider than high. It could have been pruned into a tree over the years however. I have one over twenty years old and is not that tall. It's about twenty five feet wide though. Every once in awhile I see it mistakenly substituted for the variety 'Otto Luyken' in narrow parking strips and small planting beds in malls. Surely it wasn't spec'd in that situation by a Landscape Architect, was it? ;-) Even 'Otto Luyken' can get wide if not routinely pruned back.

Next time I walk by my Zabel, with a chainsaw in my hands, it's coming down. I just looked at it all covered with snow and it's 17 degrees! Think I'll wait a few days for it to warm up before renovating that part of the garden.
Mike

Zabel laurel produces a narrower, more pointed looking leaf.