I got some Japanese Sampora - that's the name I was told, anyway - from
the garden of someone my son rides for. They cut it down, he got me a
piece about 6" around & a couple of feet long. It was nice wood. Not
terribly hard, nice grain with a fair amount of character. Sanded down
very smooth. I'd say it was about as hard as Poplar, but it's been a
year. I recall thinking it would be nice to have larger stock to build
something out of.

On the Paulownia, there's some grown around here in Maryland, US. I've
also heard it was a scam - read that somewhere on the Internet too -
but one old guy that's local told me he raised & sold it successfully,
so I think it must be tough to find a good buyer. He also said
something about how it was cut & shipped - the buyers were very
particular about something, can't recall what.

Jim