'jumping down from above (such as when jumping out of a tree)'
'such as' means that jumping out of a tree is not actually required. Falling out of midair should work with it. You'll still take falling damage, if you use flight to avoid doing so you'll turn off branch pounce I'm pretty sure.
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As a GM I would let you fall down from a flying position to deal damage, but remember anything that would eliminate the fall damage would eliminate that extra damage from branch pounce.
Basically the damage you take is linked to the damage they take, in the ways specified by the feat.
The one way to make really good use of this is to get the boots of the cat, which cause you to take minimum damage from a fall (as if you rolled a 1 on each d6).
The amount of damage you deal with branch fall is linked to the number of d6s you would take for falling damage. So anything that would reduce that number, reduces how much your enemy takes.
Boots of the cat will allow you to take that maximum number (20d6 for a 200ft fall) and only take 20 damage from it. Because it impacts what you would roll on the d6s it doesn't impact the damage your enemy takes. Because magic.
Alchemist mummification with the the rag doll mutagen would turn all fall dmg into non-lethal and the mummification discovery will turn non-lethal dmg to 0. This would allow you to dive from any height to attack your enemy.
Exactly!
Goblin Scout-Underground Chemist UnRogue 4/Vivisectionist Alchemists dropping out of the sky can be terrifying... they literally just splat on the ground, then stand back up... after delivering bunches of Sneak Attack damage for the charging, as well as all the Branch Pounce damage.