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In northwest Louisiana, sycamore fruits are ripe this time of year. Numerous fruits hang from the upper twigs of the arboretum's only sycamore tree. The fruits are way up top, out of reach. Luckily, for the purpose of documentation, a single sycamore ball was found on the ground, among the several scattered branchlets.
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| The arboretum's sycamore is located near the Student Union Building. You
can read about its history on an old blog post, found here. |
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This specimen has a very noticeable lean in its trunk. The sycamore has grown in response to the competition for sunrays: it's leaning away from two southern red oaks (Quercus falcata), one of which is a very large, on-site native.
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The bark at the base of the trunk is dark brown and very rough.
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Looking up, we see the characteristic light-colored bark, a few crinkled brown leaves, and the globose fruiting structures.
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The sycamore ball, not quite as ignominious as the sweetgum ball, is an aggregate of tiny fruits, tightly bound together in a globose shape. Only one sycamore ball could be found in the leaf-litter for inspection.
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When the fruits are ripe, sycamore balls are light brown, round, and large, measuring more than 1½ inches across. They are known to create a litter problem.
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With a little agitation, this globose fruiting structure breaks apart into a mound of fluff.
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Soft, lightweight, fluffy fibers are attached to sycamore seeds. The fibers aid seed dispersal: the lightweight fibers float on wind and water.
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A few fruits were picked out of the mound of fluff. The fruits themselves are a type of achene. They aren't showy: they are narrow and measure less than a half inch in length.
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You can see leafy, spring-time photos of this specimen on an old blog post, found here.
