I can't choose a favourite, so I'll just mention one I've always admired even though it has its downsides - I think Monkey Puzzle trees are neat! (Araucaria araucana). I've planted one, but I know it won't likely fruit until I'm gone but they do produce edible nuts if you're lucky enough to have planted a female. On the plus side, the deer don't eat them. On the downside, the reason the deer don't eat them is because they're *really* prickly.

There is no way I can pick one tree.  I won't even try.  Here's a list of some favorites (I'm in south Florida):

Banyan - EPIC, one tree can become an entire forest if the aerial roots are allowed to touch the ground.  Really great for climbing.  Also they are related to figs, so I'm biased.
Mango - Best fruit around, and old trees are all over the place in my area.  You can't live in S Florida and not be in anticipation of mango season all year.
Fig - Amazing fruit, super easy to grow, not to mention all the historical accounts of fig trees and their significance.  Really wide range too.  Lots of fig enthusiasts out there.
Moringa - Duh, it's the miracle tree.  I have about 20 of them planted around my yard.  Just really fun to grow.

There are plenty of other native or non food producing trees I admire, although I can't grow them.  Live oak forests are amazing.  Slash pines too.  

A few others I'm growing in my nursery that I'm pretty excited about are black sapote, carambola, jackfruit, sapodilla, loquat, dwarf poinciana, and I am about to start some bottlebrush tree seeds.  Pretty excited for that one although it is native to Australia, not Florida.

Willow.
Medicinal, good climbing tree, and indicates presence of groundwater.
Can be used for firewood.
Can be used to grow living fences.
Can be used to quickly make a low quality bow, a fishtrap, or a basket.

Well simple answer my favorite tree is which ever tree I am currently hugging, sitting under, enjoying the dappled sun looking up through the branches, or otherwise appreciating.

The longer answer is there is no way to pick just one.

I am a fan of the Paulownia after seeing how amazing they can be living at Arcosanti.

I sure wish I could grow moringa in my area, but sadly it gets too cold for these wonderful trees.

Love me some hazelnut trees, as they are amazingly useful trees.

Can't forget the wonderful weeping willows.

Being from the PNW, gotta give my love to the Doug fir.

The redwoods aren't anything to go underappreciated either.

Quaking aspen are wonderful in a light breeze.

And the wonderful flammable birch bark I envy for Bushcrafters who have birch in their area, not to mention the ability to make birch bark canoes.

Is there one tree that could be the end all favorite for me? Nope. They are like snowflakes, each beautiful in their own different ways. Even trees of the same species each have their own personalities and it is hard to pick one over the other.

Since however this is a thread in the fruit tree subsection, my favorite fruit tree would have to be olive trees. Because I love how they grow, as well as the olive picking at Arcosanti when I did my workshop was what inspired me to join the landscaping crew there. So I have a lot of fond memories associated with those wonderful olive trees. It has nothing to do with what they provide or anything practical (though they are great practical trees) but more just associations with good times.

At the moment it's the cherry tree out front that is starting to produce this year's cherries.

This is like asking  me which is my favorite Miles Davis album. But  citrus probably is close to the top of the list.

My favorite tree is a beech.It is about 500 years old.Lovers have written their names and a lot of hearts to express their love.I love this tree because it triggers my imagination.It stands there proud and keep a lot of secrets in its inner.I use to ask this tree questions but it i good keeping secrets.

Crataegus schraderiana.  It makes great jam and is small, pretty and trouble free, and no-one round here realises you can eat it.

as of yet I have many favourite trees all trees are magnificent beings. But I have to say over much consideration my favourite right now would be willow any Salix would do I often think of them as the bamboo of the tree world a very vigorous and amazing plant that grows in the wettest ugliest places extremely multi functional plant with awesome potential to be a pioneer in any landscape they are medicinal easy to coppice make wonderful trellises ,rooting hormone, fences, baskets and firewood all followed by its ability to accumulate biomass and create esthetic beauty. I think everyone should have a willow very useful beautiful tree. only downside I would give it is that many suggest not to plant it close to waterlines septic tanks or weeping tile.

I'm also not going to pick just one. I have seen some beautiful Hickory and Elm trees. I have three giant Douglas Firs that are probably more than 500 years old.

I'm moving to the tropics, so I intend to have moringa, giant luceana and tree lucerne and oil palm for their usefulness. None of them are particularly beautiful trees.

Mango, Jackfruit and about a hundred other fruits grow on quite attractive trees. I'd love to have a banyan.

The one I expect to have the most fun with, will be figs for making those Living Bridges. If Banyan or some type of fruiting vine work for bridging, I will incorporate them. There are a few types of grapes that do well in the tropics and passion fruit vines get quite large. So I'd like to build my own bridge that is useful as a bridge, but also as a place to grow tasty vining fruits. None of the examples I saw out of India seem to be much concerned with food production on the bridge. I'd also like the bridge to be in flower most of the year. That's doable with the right combination of vines. At 8 degrees from the equator I will have more choices then the builders of those really big bridges in India.

I'm going to want to differentiate myself from every other place that has a few palm trees and some sand, in order to attract visitors. Sculptural stuff with trees will be part of that.

Hmmm, tough choice. Ask me again another time, and I will likely answer differently, but as of this moment...

I'm going to say breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis). It grows into such a towering tree (the specific epithet, altilis, means approximately, "growing in the heights'); its leaves are really cool looking; and it grows like an inverse banyan, i.e. wherever a root reaches the surface, it sends up a new trunk, so that one tree eventually becomes a whole grove. The fruits while still firm are a good source of daily calories (if Christ had been born in Polynesia instead of the Middle East, the Paternoster might say, "give us this day our daily breadfruit"), and as it ripens and becomes mushy, it also sweetens. Either way, it is so filling, I can't eat it in one meal, but have to spread it over two meals. Once, as I walked home after a weary day, I came upon a familiar young breadfruit tree by the roadside and I just had to stop and hug her, I loved her so much. She had provided me with so many tasty meals, I was overwhelmed with gratitude!

I have to mention a few others, "runners-up," we might say...

Caribbean prickly-ash (Zanthoxylum caribaeum): its thorny trunk means cows are unlikely to push over a fence made from it, and its leaves are food for several species of swallowtails.
Guacimo (Guazuma ulmifolia): I was introduced to this tree while an undergrad student, on my first trip outside the United States; some of my colleagues nicknamed it the "granola tree."
Coconut (Cocos nucifera): who doesn't love coconut water drunk right out of the nut on a tropical day? Who hasn't seen a travel brochure picturing a perfect beach lined with coconut trees?

My “Flat Wonderful” peach tree.
It’s my favorite because it has purple-red leaves through most of the growing season; then later on in September the leaves start to turn dark green.
Plus, it produces flat peaches that look like doughnuts, or tires, or flying saucers, or what have you; furthermore, these peaches are super Juicy and Delicious!

I love this tree!!!

Would you believe I only planted it three years ago; and, when I got it, it was just a whip no taller than 1’ 6” and 1/4” wide?!?

I live in zone 5, and this is a cold hardy peach tree baby!

=M=

Mark Seasigh wrote:
Plus, it produces flat peaches that look like doughnuts, or tires, or flying saucers, or what have you; furthermore, these peaches are super Juicy and Delicious!

Those are the ones I have seen sold as "Saturn peaches." A former coworker had a little fun with a city slicker who didn't know about them; he said the reason they're so expensive is that they're grown on Saturn!

Definitely the Witch Hazel, I love their fragrant flowers, you can smell them from a mile away on the breeze. Since they bloom at odd times they are often he only flowers around. Their seed ejection system is crazy cool, shooting seeds up to 30 feet. They are medicinal as well.

My favourite tree is banyan. Because it's huge.

When I was on acreage my favorite tree was the weeping willow.   It was great fodder for ALL my livestock,  shed good amts. of whips and small branches naturally to be gathered/ eaten.   It was also beautiful and a great sturdy shade tree for my grazing animals.    Easy to propagate as most willows are.    On a small property though,  I am torn between beautiful and delicious Juneberry/amelanchier grown as a small multi-trunk tree..     or nice shade producing river birch that shelters birds all year and keeps my house shaded from afternoon sun.   Both leave enough filtered light to grow strawberries, etc. underneath!

Jay Angler wrote:I can't choose a favourite, so I'll just mention one I've always admired even though it has its downsides - I think Monkey Puzzle trees are neat! (Araucaria araucana). I've planted one, but I know it won't likely fruit until I'm gone but they do produce edible nuts if you're lucky enough to have planted a female. On the plus side, the deer don't eat them. On the downside, the reason the deer don't eat them is because they're *really* prickly.

I second the Monkey Puzzle, or any of it's relatives really. I love all trees, and I'm going to have a huge mix - including a few new to me mentioned in this thread - but I absolutely must hunt down one of these dinosaur trees when I get a place for it. Probably add a few other 'ancient' plants to the same area and add a velociraptor version of a pink flamingo stick just for fun.

A Naharudin wrote:My favorite tree is Snake fruit, of course. I'm a snake fruit farmer by the way.

Reasons:

Pro:
- The fruit taste great
- Many health benefits in it
- Makes good/straight posts for fences due to its spines
- Good commodity, even though it's cheap but we can harvest tons of snake fruit
- We can use snake fruit to make a coffee, wine, pickled etc
- It is slowly hitting the global market  
- The fruit is available year round
- It is an exotic fruit

Cons:
- Check out the cons in my homepage here Snake fruit (Salak) explained

Snake fruit is definitely one of my favourite fruits. I was told the tree is so spikey because elephants would eat them and be one of the only creatures to be able to get through the spikes to the delicious fruits!

I also love breadfruits and the large leaves mesmerize me with their shape.

Related to monkey puzzle (though I never heard the monkey tree could have edible nuts) is the deeeeelicious bunya/boonya/bunya bunya nut. A gloriously shaped tree, I often drive past some that are sporadic in some fields, and think they look like giant triffids on their way to get you....or like the alien crafts in Jeff Waynes War of the worlds....but in a nice way! I think I mean to say that they look quite sentient (especially these ones as the corner before has an evil african tulip tree on it for comparison http://bobthebeeman.com.au/african-tulip-tree-ebook.asp)
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii)

Massive (up to 45m), ancient ( been around since the Jurassic) and beautiful
Produces an enormous amount of carbohydrates in the form of nuts
One of the rare foods i can forage in a major city
Lives for hundreds of years
Timber used for guitar soundboards