Identifying Characteristics
| Size/Form: | Sycamore is a large, massively spreading, deciduous tree that commonly grows to a height of 100' and rarely to heights of 150' to 170' and has an open, somewhat irregular crown. Diameter ranges from 3 to 14 feet. |
| Leaves: | The leaves are simple, alternate, and deciduous. They range from 4-7 inches in diameter, and are broadly oval in shape, palmately 3-5 lobed, and with shallow sinuses. Leaves have a long, tapered apex. The leaf base is flat or heart-shaped. Leaf margins are wavy and dentate. The leaf surfaces are light green and glabrous above, with pubescence along the veins below. Leaf petioles are stout and hollow, 3-5 inches long, enclosing the lateral buds in their swollen bases. |
| Twigs: | The twigs are slender, zigzagging, orange-brown, becoming gray. The pith is homogeneous. |
| Bark: | The bark is thin and creamy white at first, but becomes brownish and mottled with deciduous, plate-like scales as the tree ages. These plates fall off to reveal whitish-green inner bark. The base of old trees appears furrowed and scaly. |
| Flowers: | The flowers are unisexual and very small, appearing in dense, stalked heads. |
| Fruit: | Individual fruits are needlelike achenes that taper to a sharp point and have many fine hairs to help with wind dispersal. The fruits are clustered into spherical heads about the size of ping-pong balls. Each head (or multiple fruit) is held out from the twig on a slender stalk 3-6 inches long. At maturity the achenes dry to a yellow-brown and the cluster falls apart, leaving only a small "wooden" core attached to the stalk. |
Similar Trees on the Florida 4-H Forest Ecology Contest List:
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