The tutor shares a nice find from his walk home today: an American sycamore tree.

Sometimes, identifying a tree, one can’t get so close as one might like: the tree might be on private property, so the viewer can’t inspect it close-up. Yet, the tree might have distinguishing characteristics that can be identified from across the street. So it is with the American sycamore.

The American sycamore has maple-like leaves, but its fruit are hanging balls (called buttonballs). Specifically, the American variety has one ball per hanging stem. Also, the marginal clefts of American sycamore leaves are much shallower than those of other varieties I’ve read about.

There we have it: a local ID of an American sycamore:)

Source:

Brockman, Frank and Rebecca Merrilees. Trees of North America. New York: Golden Press, 1968.

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane Campbell River, BC.