Sycamore or Sweetgum -- setting the record straight

My parents always taught me that honesty is the best policy, so I need to 'fess up about something I just discovered.  My pretty little drawing is NOT of a sycamore ball after all!!!  I was out walking yesterday and went by the place where I picked up the specimens which I'm currently drawing.  There was the sycamore tree, with its flaky, multi-colored bark.  There were some big, wide, brown leaves still gathered around the base of the tree.  And then?  The seed pods?  There were some there, but . . . they aren't spiky!  They are bumpy and round like a button, and mostly still hanging from the tree.  What I had inadvertently picked up were seed pods from the tree growing right next to the sycamore.  And since I've always thought these were sycamore balls, I never thought to check!!  Well, yesterday when I got home I went straight to my tree bible, Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs, and got the scoop (which is what I should have done in the first place!)

Platanus occidentalis (American sycamore) is also commonly called American planetree, buttonwood, and buttonball-tree.  It has large leaves which can grow to 9" across.  The “button” names come from the shape of its fruit – like little round Christmas tree ornaments. The fruits appear in late summer and hang on to the tree through the winter. Each ball is actually a cluster of many seeds which will break apart in spring.  It isn't particularly interesting from an artistic perspective, if you ask me.  The sycamore is a great and noble tree, however.  It is one of the tallest of the native eastern North American deciduous trees and can grow to be 75 - 100 feet tall. 

Liquidambar styraciflua (Sweetgum) on the other hand, is widely planted throughout the East, Midwest and South for its excellent fall color.  Its leaves are star-shaped and turn gorgeous shades of yellow, orange, red and burgundy late into the fall (see my blog entry on November 4 -- another mystery solved!).  The sweetgum grows 60 - 75 feet high and has deeply-grooved, scaly bark which explains one of its nick-names, Alligator-wood. Its most distinctive characteristic, though, is its fruit: the woody, spiny, capsular globe I've been ignorantly calling a sycamore ball!

So now you know two things:  first, you can tell the difference between a sycamore tree and a sweetgum tree.  And second, you know my artistic knowledge exceeds my botanical knowledge.  I just checked with the Virginia Department of Forestry website and I learned that there are 98 species of trees growing in Virginia.  I can only identify (correctly) 18 of them.  I'm hoping you won't hold it against me!

As they say, back to the drawing board . . .