American Sycamore
Winter is perhaps the ideal time to appreciate our native and very stately tree the American Sycamore. For in the winter its chalky white bark – especially high up in older trees but down almost to ground level in younger trees – shines forth most vividly against the blue winter sky. So, look high up into a stand of trees, and if you see a brilliant white bark, with some darker patches perhaps lower on the tree, you’re looking at a sycamore. If you notice some round looking balls hanging from the stems, again, this is a tell tale sign as well of eastern sycamore, as not all of last fall’s round of soft and feathery seed pods have made their way yet to the ground.
The bark of the lower and older parts of a given sycamore tree are a beautiful mottled color, as thin dark tan to gray mature slices of bark peel off revealing the chalky new bark below, which may vary in color from white to light tan. This gives the bark of the sycamore an appearance of a mottled cat or of a brinded cow. It has probably the most beautiful bark of any of our local trees.
The leaves of a sycamore are quite large – five to ten inches across, and shaped somewhat like a maple leaf, bright green above, with a fuzz that grows on the bottom side, giving the leaf bottom a lighter appearance. In the fall the leaves turn yellowish brown, and fall to the ground very brown and already significantly dried out.
You have seen the fruit, little balls an inch or so across dangling from the twigs and falling off in the fall and winter. Not hard or pointed like the sweet gum ball, which is of similar size, the sycamore ball is very light in weight, containing within it small little nuts or nutlets surrounded by downy like hairs. These “buttonballs” as they are called often stay on the tree until they are so dried out that they just disintegrate in the wind, which carries the downy covered seeds away to germinate far from the parent tree. Or they will fall into the water and float for miles downstream. Children love to stomp on the buttonballs, and then feel the downy seed casings against their skin.
As sycamores get older, their heart wood tends to decay, leaving many of them hollow, either in parts or along much of their length. Thus they provide shelter for many of our birds, including the large pileated woodpecker, owls of various kinds, as well as bats and many smaller birds such as swallows. Raccoons have been known to find sycamore holes more than suitable as homes. The downy seeds are eaten by many birds and small mammals, and thus distributing far and wide seeds ready for germination.
300 years ago in what is now Guilford County, before our forests were cleared for fields, and before our river and creek bottom ands were logged for the wood so needed by our early settlers, the sycamore tree ruled supreme along the river and creek bottoms. Trees six to seven feet in diameter at chest height, perhaps 150 feet tall, and 5-600 years old would not have been uncommon. Only the Tulip Polar, which often shares lowland forests with the sycamore, grows taller in our piedmont woods, yet even they are not as massive. The sycamore was indeed the king of the primeval Carolina piedmont bottomland.
Today the American sycamore still grows in the bottomlands of the piedmont. Take a walk along the Eno river near Durham, and you’ll see great sycamore trees reaching out over the river and up to the sky above. Canoe down the Dan and you’ll see white sycamore trunks glistening all along the banks of the river.
The sycamore’s wood is light in density, not the best for fuel. Though a tough wood, it is prone to bending, and thus not best for bearing great loads. It decays much to quickly for many structural uses where it would be exposed to the elements. It’s chief virtue to our forbears was in fact its most annoying quality. As a wood it is well nigh impossible to split.
The Indians used sycamore to make large dugout canoes. Given the girth of many sycamores, the lightness of the wood, and its resistance to splitting, sycamore trunks were perfect for primitive solid wagon wheels of early settlers. Sycamore became a good wood for cutting into odd and unusual shapes as furniture parts. Well painted and protected from the elements, it was excellent for barber poles or siding for railroad cars. Lightweight, it was ideal as casing for transporting large objects like manufacturing equipment or pianos. For a butcher’s block it could not be beaten (no pun intended), given its resistance to splitting. It was useful for musical instruments, and often found its way into the flooring of houses and mills.
Sycamores are growing again along the banks of out streams and rivers in Greensboro and GuilfordCounty. Where these bottomlands are protected we can hope that our children and grandchildren will see specimens not unlike those seen by our forbears.
There is a nice row of sycamores along the banks of North Buffalo Creek in Latham park. As you drive down Benjamin Parkway toward town, just before merging right into Smith Street, there is a large solo sycamore growing there a few feet up from the river. I have often seen hawks standing in its branches looking out for their next meal.
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