A facile and eco‐friendly biosynthetic route for preparing Pd truncated octahedrons (PdTOs) using firmiana simplex leaf extract was reported without any chemical reducing agents. The information of reducing components, reduction process and time were obtained by ATR‐FTIR imaging, FTIR and UV–Vis spectroscopy, respectively. TEM image revealed that more than 75% of PdNPs were composed of PdTOs with an average diameter of 9.2 nm. HR‐TEM analysis demonstrated that a single PdTO consisted of the mix of {100} and {111} crystal planes. SAED and XRD pattern confirmed the well crystalline nature of fcc structured PdTOs. The model reactions of electro‐oxidation of methanol and reduction of p‐nitrophenol (p‐NP) were adopted to explore the effects of structure and size of PdNPs on the catalytic properties. In the electro‐oxidation of methanol, the forward‐scan peak current density (If) of PdTOs was 10.05 mA cm‐2, 6.3 times and 1.9 times of PdNPs‐0 and PdNPs‐4:1, illustrating its superior electro‐catalytic property to that of spherical PdNPs. In the p‐NP reduction reaction, the apparent rate constant (Ka) over PdTOs was 0.358 min‐1, higher than spherical PdNPs‐0 (0.08 min‐1) with the similar particle size and lower than the same spherical PdNPs‐4:1 (0.562 min‐1) and commercial Pd/C (0.415 min‐1), which all about half the size of PdTOs. It has been demonstrated that electro‐chemical oxidation of methanol was a structure‐sensitive reaction, while the reduction of p‐NP was mainly dependent on the particle size of PdNPs. Highlights: A novel, facile and eco‐friendly biosynthetic route for preparing Pd truncated octahedrons (PdTOs) using firmiana simplex leaf extract was reported.The fcc PdTOs enclosed by a mix of {100} and {111} facets were well crystallized with a purity of more than 75%.It was found that electro‐chemical oxidation of methanol was a structure‐sensitive reaction, while the reduction efficiency of p‐nitrophenol (p‐NP) was dependent on the particle size of PdNPs.The PdTOs exhibited significantly superior electro‐catalytic activity and catalytic stability to that of spherical PdNPs. PdNPs with small size were more favorable for catalyzing p‐NP reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]