100 Species Challenge (#1): The Sycamore Tree

I decided that I had to start my list of 100 species with this:

1) Sycamore Tree (platanus occidentalis)

For all the years we've lived in an apartment in an urban setting, my green-hunger has been mostly fed by the ten beautiful sycamores across the road. We can see them from our front windows, beyond the asphalt parking lot that runs between us and the parallel road. When the sweet girl and I sometimes borrow the nearest public bench for read-aloud time, it's under the shade of one of those sycamores. We've come to think of them as our special trees.

I'm not sure I even knew what they were when we first moved here eleven years ago. I grew up amongst maple, oak and pine in Virginia. If there were sycamore trees in the neighborhood, I don't recall them, and I think I probably would given their sheer size, the beauty (and largeness) of their leaves, and the fascinating way they "shed" their bark in the summertime. I love the mottled look of the trees as the bark peels away, their beautiful shades of brown, tan, cream and palest gray-green forming lovely designs and the dry, heavy "scrolls" of bark that fall to the ground. It was only through reading done for this challenge that I learned that what the tree is doing when it loses its bark really is akin to shedding, or perhaps more accurately, molting (like a caterpillar that's outgrown its skin). It has something to do with the fibers of the sycamore bark not being able to "stretch" to accommodate the growth of the tree inside.

I've also learned that sycamores belong to one of the oldest tree families on the planet (platanaceae) and that individual trees can grow to be hundreds of years old.

The sycamores in our neighborhood are probably a hybrid breed, called the London planetree, which was developed from the American sycamore. I don't know that for certain, but from what I read in an article in about.com's forestry section, those are far more common now, especially in urban areas, as they're able to resist certain forms of illness that sycamores are prone to.

I also learned that the biblical sycamore was probably the sycamore fig (ficus sycomorus). Good to know, as I was never quite sure how on earth a "wee little man" like Zacchaeus could have ever managed to clamber up one of the sycamores in our neighborhood. With their huge trunks, they're not exactly easy-to-climb trees!