Perhaps Gleditsia triacanthos or similar sp.

man thats some mean thorns on it ...

if peren is right .. and it rare when isnt ... that tree in that corner.. must be killed ...

cut flush to the ground and apply a stump killer .. as many times as it takes to kill it ...

absolutely nothing should be planted in that corner.. so close to the house.. so why bother with the backbreaking labor of digging it out ... besides the fact that its hard to dig in a corner ...

look up.. and you will probably see from where the bird perched and dropped the pre fertilized pellet .. or the wind was stopped by the house itself ...

ken

Plant asked about here has honey locust thorns and leaves. Most intentional plantings of this species consist of thorn free horticultural selections so the thorniness of the typical wild species can be unfamiliar.

What hasn't been said here...this plant is far more likely to simply be a persistent root sprout from a long ago removed tree that likely was nowhere near this location. This could have been a seedling, but most likely not.

Having loved and hated this species here at the Valley (resident species long before I arrived), I recognize that it can be a colonizing species - but mostly the suckering behavior is a survival mechanism when the main trunk is damaged or removed, much like Robinia pseudoacacia.

I'll be interested to hear from Sandy to see if there are sprouts that prop up elsewhere as battle is done with this cornered individual.

Those thorns are awesome and terrifying. That side of the house is next to a heavily wooded lot which could have been the source of the problem plant. I haven’t noticed that any other honey locusts have popped up over the years, but I haven’t been looking. I’ll keep an eye out for suckers after we get rid the corner tree.