plantladylin - I could have sworn that I had leaf pictures, but can't find any right now. I need to dig out my external hard drive, but I think most of those pictures will be of the leaves in the background of other pictures. Looking at your links, the leaves do look very similar to the cottonwood.
The branches seem a lot droopier than the cottonwoods you linked to and I've never noticed it actually getting 'cottony', but will definitely keep my eyes out for that this spring. It seems to get its leaves earlier in the spring than the hickories, but also lose the leaves earlier.
