Claire, are you certain that's not two differing types of plants growing in close proximity to each other? That's the way it looks to me.

There are plant types in this world having what is known as "juvenile" foliage. Such things as plants in the genera Thuja, Chamaecyparis, Juniper4us, and others -those are all conifers-have this juvenile type of foliage, and most, but not all, then switch to the mature foliage type as the plant gets older. So too with something like oaks....there's lots of species of oaks, and because their first sets of leaves don't necessarily resemble those of a mature tree, identification of very young plants can be difficult. But that's not this.

Hi Wisconsitom, I checked the tree closely and it's definitely the same tree. It was just hard to capture this as the tree was really towering over me! This one branch is just too curious!

Yeah, that is odd. Until someone who actually knows something about this chimes in, I will have to say that what you have found is an anomaly, or that it is more common than we think, but that it is some kind of break where the plant went into a different foliage type for some unknown reason.

There...talk about saying nothing!

Crotons, Codieum sp., can put out quite a different leaf but it's usually at a younger stage. By the time they get to that height they tend to be pretty consistent with their leaves. I have a number of them that are over 2 metres tall but they haven't exhibited that sort of a change.

Hi

Don't forget there are well over 200 named hybrids ,maybe more lol

Most of the ones I see including mine have similar leaves but it is possible to graft different types Maybe that's what it is?? gary

Hi Gary, this particular croton is from the garden boyfriend parent's garden. Grafting is pretty far out of their usual gardening practices so I highly doubt it's a result of that! Nonetheless a mystery indeed.