Look at this beautiful Sycamore tree.  Platanus occidentalis.  This one is in Meeks Park, near the little bridge.  

 

I love looking UP into the sky at the Sycamore trees.  The mottled brown bark flakes off in jigsaw puzzle pieces, leaving the trunk to look like Camo fabric, and exposing the white underbark at the very top.

 

My Peterson Field Guide says that Sycamore is considered one of the most massive of eastern US trees.  They grow 50' to 130' tall, and live to be hundreds of years old.  The leaves are huge: 6-10 inches across.  That's how I remember the botanical name:  leaves as big as dinner plates.

 

The wood is hard and coarse-grained, and used for boxes, barrels, butchers' blocks, cabinetwork, and furniture.  Indians used the trunks for dugout canoes, some weighing thousands of pounds.  

 

Be sure to notice the Sycamores when you're out and about.  They're the ones with the stark white branches poking up into the winter sky.

 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!