Back in March I posted an identification aid for American Sycamore. It’s a familiar tree and most people can recognize it from a distance (don’t feel bad if you can’t, read the post and you’ll be IDing sycamores left and right). At the time, these elegant trees were void of leaves. They’re now fully leafed-out, and have been for some time.
Here’s what the leaves look like.
Ranger Katie demonstrates how large sycamore leaves can grow.
As you can see, they have a distinctive shape and some of the leaves can grow quite large.
Here’s a question for those of you who like quizzes:
What other plant, growing in the Museum’s Wetlands, has large leaves, looks like a water lily but is more closely related to sycamore than to water lily?
I’m guessing a lotus plant.
If that was a guess, it was a good one. You’re absolutely correct, lotus!
For anyone who would like to read a little bit about the lotus’ divergence and convergence, evolutionarily:
http://www.peabody.yale.edu/exhibits/treeoflife/divergence.html
Scroll down past the dinosaur and hummingbird stuff, better yet, read the dinosaur/hummer stuff, then scroll down and check out the lotus/sycamore connection.
Thanks Ann, and have a good one.