Tree of the month: May 2024 - Sycamore

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The Sycamore Tree, Europe’s largest Maple species, is not native to Britain. Some think it was introduced by the Romans, others that it was introduced around 500 years ago from Central Europe. Sycamore can live up to 400 years and reach 35 metres in height. It grows in many different habitats and is especially resilient to pollution and salty winds. Sycamore is perhaps best known for the winged fruits (called ‘samaras’) which are very fertile and, when ripe, spin through the air, allowing the wind to carry them over distances.

This way they spread widely as any gardener will know from the dozens of seedlings which emerge the following spring. For generations children have enjoyed tossing these winged seeds into the air to watch them ‘helicoptering’ down to the ground.

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​This fast-growing tree, with its smooth grey bark, can quickly colonise an area and crowd out other species. The large spring shoots open to five- fingered (palmate) leaves with flowers hanging beneath in racemes. Sycamore does have wildlife value, though less than many native species like Oak.

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​Wildlife value of Sycamore: John Evelyn, the prominent 17th century diarist and landowner, thought the Sycamore should be banished from gardens and avenues because of the many aphids it attracts. These aphids emit honey-dew on the leaves, turning them, and things it drips onto, mouldy and unsightly. Despite this Sycamore has been widely planted in parks, gardens and along streets, due to its resilience and fast growth. The aphids do provide food for many insect-eating birds.

The hanging racemes of flowers in spring provide nectar and pollen for many flying insects, including bees. The leaves are the food plant for several caterpillars including the Sycamore Moth, and the hard seeds are eaten by birds like Goldfinches and Greenfinches which have strong enough bills to break into their outer coating.

When the trees mature they can provide shelter for small mammals, including bats, and nest sites for Blackbirds, Robins and Blue Tits, as well as some butterflies, beetles and ladybirds.

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​Human uses of Sycamore: The dense canopy and quick growth of Sycamore has led to them being planted around farmhouses in areas like Derbyshire and the Scottish lowlands, especially near dairies, to cool and shelter the buildings.

After about 60 years Sycamore can be felled for timber. The creamy, hard, fine-grained wood is favoured for carving. As the wood doesn’t stain, it has been used for ladles and spoons as well as for toys and furniture. When Sycamore wood is ‘rippled’ and highly decorative it has been used for the sides of violins.

Sycamore timber is being researched as a possible timber for agroforestry. Because it is so invasive trees would need to be vegetatively propagated from male specimens as males could not then spread by seed.

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In autumn, as well as the seed ‘helicopters’ becoming ripe, many leaves of Sycamore become affected by a fungus commonly known as Tar Spot. Although this may look dramatic the leaves fall and the fungus doesn’t damage the tree itself. In fact Tar Spot is a good indicator that air pollution levels are low. One of the redeeming features of Sycamore in our landscape is that, as yet, they are less affected by disease than many of our other deciduous trees.

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​Symbolism and myths associated with Sycamore: In Europe Sycamore have long associations with beauty, strength and resilience. In ancient Greece Sycamore, such prolifically-seeding trees, were a symbol of fertility and abundance, and linked to Hera, the goddess of marriage and childbirth. Norse myths link the tree to Freya, their goddess of fertility, love and war. She was often pictured as seated in a Sycamore.

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​In Wales there is a long tradition of giving love spoons as a symbol of love and commitment. They were carved by sweethearts and, being a wood that is easy to carve, even with basic tools like penknives, were traditionally carved from Sycamore.

Early Celtic myths held the Sycamore to be sacred, linking heaven, earth and the underworld, and a home to fairies and spirits. In Ancient Egyptian lore, (the ‘Book of the Dead), two Sycamores grow at the eastern gate of Heaven. The sun god Ra rises between them each morning. Sarcophagi were often made from Sycamore and one planted beside a tomb as for them, as for many cultures since, it symbolised protection.

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​The Sycamore in history

The Tolpuddle Martyrs: The Tolpuddle Martyrs met under a Sycamore tree in Dorset in 1834 to form a society to fight against starvation wages in rural communities. Lord Melbourne, Prime Minister at the time, was bitterly opposed to Trade Unions and he didn’t oppose the harsh sentence given to 6 protesters of 7 years transportation to Australia. They became known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs, a symbol of working class struggles ever since. They were pardoned and given a free passage home two years later. The tree, known as the Martyr’s tree, still stands in the village of Tolpuddle.

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The Sycamore in the arts: The resilience of the Sycamore is referenced in Wendell Berry’s poem, 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...
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...
It is a fact, sublime, mystical and unassailable.”

The most famous current Sycamore, the ‘sycamore gap tree’ on Hadrian’s wall was, sadly, felled by an act of vandalism. There was an international outcry, showing the importance of mature trees in our landscapes The National Trust is using its seeds to grow new trees.

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​Even Ella Fitzgerald sings to the Sycamore in ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me, a ballad written by Gus Kahn in 1931:
“…Night breezes seem to whisper I love you
Birds singing in the Sycamore trees,
Dream a little dream of me…”