Search: ailanthus
Why: In Slapstick, p. 21:
Smoke from a cooking fire on the terrazzo floor of the lobby of the Empire State Building on the Island of Death floats out ofver the ailanthus jungle which Thirty-fourth Street has become.Answer: Oh. It's a kind of tree. "Any of several deciduous Asian trees of the genus Ailanthus, especially the tree-of-heaven." Influenced by Greek anthos, "flower," of Ambonese ai lanto, tree of heaven : ai, "tree" + lanto, "heaven"
Source: Answers.com
The More You Know: The fruit of these trees is a samara, which we call helicopters. These are from the red maple (aka my favorite tree, in conjunction with the Japanese maple):
