American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis): what the agencies record

This page reports what US federal publications say about one tree. It does not identify trees from descriptions or photos and does not say what should be done with any tree. The family overview, tree species in the agency records, explains the sources and holds the comparison table.

At a glance

Item	What the source records
Scientific name	Platanus occidentalis L., sycamore family
Other names	American planetree, buttonwood, American sycamore and buttonball-tree (Silvics)
Native status, USDA PLANTS	Native in Canada and in the lower 48 states
Record size, Silvics	Trees on record exceeding 305 cm (120 in) in diameter and 43 m (140 ft) tall; one in Indiana 320 cm (126 in) in diameter and 51 m (168 ft) tall
Green weight of the wood, NRS-38	52 lb per cubic foot, without bark

Native range

The Silvics of North America handbook (Agriculture Handbook 654, 1990) says sycamore grows in all states east of the Great Plains except Minnesota. It records a range from southwestern Maine west to New York, extreme southern Ontario, central Michigan and southern Wisconsin, south in Iowa and eastern Nebraska to eastern Kansas, Oklahoma and south-central Texas, and east to northwestern Florida and southeastern Georgia, with a presence in the mountains of northeastern Mexico. It calls the tree a common one and one of the largest in the eastern deciduous forests, fast-growing and long-lived, of lowlands and old fields.

Bark, crown and size

The handbook says sycamore is widely planted as a shade tree because of its distinctive white, exfoliating bark and broad, dense crown. It says the American sycamore grows to a larger diameter than any other North American hardwood, and gives the record sizes in the table above. Open-grown sycamores have a large irregular crown that may spread to 30 m (100 ft), while under forest conditions the crown is relatively small and the trunk long and slightly tapered, possibly clear of branches for 20 or 25 m (70 or 80 ft). On speed of growth, Silvics says only cottonwood and, under some conditions, a few pines, soft maples and black willow grow faster within its range.

Flowers and fruit

The handbook says sycamore is monoecious, with male flower clusters on short stalks on the preceding season's branchlets and female clusters on older branchlets. They appear in May in the North and as early as late March in the South. The fruit is a ball made of many closely packed, long, narrow fruits that ripen by September or October and often stay on the tree over winter, breaking up or falling off the following spring. Open-grown or plantation sycamore begins to bear seed in 6 or 7 years, and the handbook says it is generally not dependable for seed after the age of 250 years.

Wood

The Wood Handbook (FPL-GTR-282, 2021) says the heartwood of sycamore is reddish brown and the sapwood light in color and 4 to 8 cm (2 to 3 in) wide. The wood has fine texture and interlocked grain, high shrinkage in drying, and is moderately heavy, moderately hard, moderately stiff and moderately strong with good shock resistance. It lists lumber, veneer, crossties, slack cooperage, fence posts and fuel among the principal uses, with furniture, small food boxes, pallets, flooring, handles and butcher blocks among the lumber products. Silvics adds that large sycamores are likely to develop windshake, a wood defect that reduces their value for lumber.

Wood Handbook figure	Green	At 12% moisture content
Specific gravity (Table 5-3b)	0.46	0.49
Modulus of rupture, lbf per square inch (Table 5-3b)	6,500	10,000
Side hardness, lbf (Table 5-3b)	610	770

The green weight of the wood is in the NRS-38 table, the same figure used in the log weight calculator.

Pests and diseases the handbook names

Silvics (1990) says many insects feed on sycamore but none are of economic importance in forests, and that some may seriously damage individual trees planted for landscaping. It says insects probably do not kill healthy trees, but may cause severe injury or death when they attack a tree of reduced vigor.

Insects. The sycamore lacebug, the flathead sycamore-heartwood borer and the sycamore tussock moth as the more important ones, with periodical cicadas, aphids, scales, borers of several kinds, ambrosia beetles, leaf rollers and horntails. It says ants can cause ingrown bark pockets.
Anthracnose. The handbook says the fungus attacks in spring, sometimes defoliates trees completely, can kill twigs, and may leave a tree open to other diseases.
Lethal bole cankers. The handbook reports leaf scorch, dead branches, top dieback and lethal cankers in plantations in the 1970s. It says the primary organism has not been established, that Ceratocystis fimbriata and Botryodiplodia theobromae are prime suspects, and that Acremonium diospyri has also been identified in affected trees.
Mistletoe. The handbook says sycamore is host to eastern mistletoe (Phoradendron), with damage usually not serious.

The guide on reporting a pest in the United States gives the office that takes sightings of regulated pests, and pests and diseases by country sets out which ones agencies regulate. Who may apply pesticides is in pesticide licences by country.