The golden handshake of autumn

Leaves of London plane in Bute Park, Cardiff, November 5, 2014

This post was going to be about maples, but my head is tied up in knots trying to identify the many species of which I have taken pictures, so that will have to wait for another day. Instead, this will be about what we in Britain call the plane and the sycamore.

The Latin names are confusing. The plane I refer to is Platanus x acerifolia, which suggests it has maple-like leaves, while the sycamore is Acer pseudoplatanus, meaning it is plane-like. To make matters worse, while our European sycamore is officially a maple (Acer), in the USA there are several so-called sycamore species that are planes (Platanus). See here.

The main similarity is their palmate leaves – meaning they are hand-shaped. Although in this case rather like the webbed hands you would imagine a mermaid (or the Man From Atlantis) having!

Webbed hands – Patrick Duffy as the Man from Atlantis on TV in the 1970s

Anyway, it was a rare blue-sky day, so I went into Cardiff’s Bute Park, next to the castle, to investigate some red berries I had seen over the wall. That’s probably material for another post!

London plane in Bute Park

I was SO impressed by what I thought were a couple of huge old maples. Only when I returned home did I kick myself and realise they were “London planes”, as many people call them.

The planes had muscular trunks like those of very old bodybuilders…

There were still many green leaves

All around were the autumn leaves I had been dreaming of – the sort you can crunch through like a kid, kicking them up in the air. Beautiful!

Fallen leaves

Another lovely sight was a jay – we used to have one as a regular visitor to our garden, but I hadn’t seen one up close for years…

Jay (Garrulus glandarius) in Bute Park, Cardiff, November 5, 2014

Of course I should have realised it was a plane tree by its absence of twinned winged maple fruits (whirlybirds). The plane has dangly seed balls, which I didn’t notice on this occasion, but which I have seen on the younger plane trees in the city centre. I took these pictures in late November 2010…

Plane tree in the Hayes, Cardiff, November 2010

The seed balls on this bare tree look like early Christmas baubles

Plane bark when young…

Meanwhile on the same day as I visited Bute Park I had also been to Llandaff Fields and taken a closer look at the majestic sycamore I always see on my way to the hornbeam I am “following” for a year…

Sycamore in Llandaff Fields, November 5, 2014

The sycamore lost its leaves quite a while back, and not in the glorious way of a “proper” maple – or the glorious plane. The smaller sycamores in Cardiff hedgerows are still hanging on to their fading leaves, many of which are covered with tar spot fungus (Rhytisma acerinum). It’s a bit unsightly, but is thought to be an indicator of clean air!

Fading sycamore laden with keys in a hedge in September

It’s a shame they get so messy, as they are pretty when new…

Fresh sycamore leaves on a seedling in a hedge in April

Reddish sycamore keys hanging on in November

Sycamore bark in November

In a recent comment, Bill, who farms organically at White Flint Farm in Virginia quoted from The Sycamore by Wendell Berry, which was a new one to me. This seems like a good time to share it in full…

The Sycamore
In the place that is my own place, whose earth
I am shaped in and must bear, there is an old tree growing,
a great sycamore that is a wondrous healer of itself.
Fences have been tied to it, nails driven into it,
Hacks and whittles cut in it, the lightning has burned it.
There is no year it has flourished in
that has not harmed it. There is a hollow in it
that is its death, though its living brims whitely
at the lip of the darkness and flows outward.
Over all its scars has come the seamless white
of the bark. It bears the gnarls of its history
healed over. It has risen to a strange perfection
in the warp and bending of its long growth.
It has gathered all accidents into its purpose.
It has become the intention and radiance of its dark face.
It is a fact, sublime, mystical and unassailable.
In all the country there is no other like it.
I recognize in it a principle, an indwelling
the same as itself, and greater, that I would be ruled by.
I see that it stands in its place, and feeds upon it,
and is fed upon, and is native, and maker.
Wendell Berry

Thanks Bill – nice one! I found that poem and many more online here.

Sycamore bark with moss in November

It’s easy to think of the sycamore as native to Britain, but it comes from central and southern Europe and was introduced here in the Middle ages. I thought I knew this particular sycamore well, but now it was bare it had a surprise for me…

A small tree growing in the crook of the tree – maybe elder?

The alien tree grows out on the other side, too

I don’t suppose it can be call a parasite (I assume it is doing no harm?), so maybe you would call it a commensal organism on this occasion? Commensal literally means “eating at the same table”. I wonder if the little tree will get enough food? Will it thrive or wither away by next spring?

Every tree I think I know looks like a stranger from a different angle…

Autumn is taking a long time coming this year, but isn’t it wonderful, in so many ways?