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Platanus occidentalis
Also called Sycamore, American Plane Tree, Buttonball, Buttonwood, American Plane, Buttontree, Eastern Sycamore
American sycamore is a large, long-lived native tree of eastern and central North America, usually found along streams and in wetlands. It needs deep, moist soil and plenty of room, since it grows very big.
Platanus occidentalis, also known as American sycamore or American planetree, is a species of Platanus native to the eastern and central United States, the mountains of northeastern Mexico, extreme southern Ontario, and extreme southern Quebec. It is usually called sycamore in North America, a name which can refer to other types of trees in other parts of the world; in the United Kingdom, for example, the name sycamore typically refers to Acer pseudoplatanus. The American sycamore is a long-lived species, typically surviving at least 200 years and likely as long as 500–600 years. It is capable of becoming a massive tree, with a wide girth and heights reaching up to 24 m (80 ft) or more.
The species epithet occidentalis is Latin for "western", referring to the Western Hemisphere, because at the time when it was named by Carl Linnaeus, the only other species in the genus was P.
In its native range, it is often found in riparian and wetland areas. The range extends from Iowa to Ontario and New Hampshire in the north, Nebraska in the west, and south to Texas and Florida. It is apparently extirpated from Maine. It can be found in southeastern Minnesota. Closely related species (see Platanus) occur in Mexico and the southwestern states of the United States. It is sometimes grown for timber and has become naturalized in some areas outside its native range. It can be found growing successfully in Bismarck, North Dakota, and it is sold as far south as Okeechobee. The American sycamore is also well adapted to life in Argentina and Australia and is quite widespread across the Australian continent, especially in the cooler southern states such as Victoria and New South Wales.
The American sycamore is able to endure a big-city environment and was formerly extensively planted as a shade tree, but due to the defacing effects of anthracnose, it has been largely usurped in this function by the resistant London plane.
Platanus mexicana · Oriental Plane · California sycamore · Arizona sycamore · Plane
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Platanus occidentalis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
