Large five-lobed leaves with coarse irregular teeth on a red stalk, blotched from midsummer with black-rimmed yellow tar spots
Sycamore — Acer pseudoplatanus. Tar spot is the fungus Rhytisma acerinum.
Nature · Trees
Sycamore
Deciduous · to 35 m · introduced, probably Tudor
Acer pseudoplatanus — Sapindaceae
An introduced maple from central Europe, now so thoroughly naturalised that it is Britain's commonest large broadleaf in many towns. It is wind-firm and salt-tolerant, hence its use as shelter in upland farms and on coasts. Its leaves are famous for tar spot fungus, and its helicopter fruits are the ones every child throws.
How to know it
How to spot them
- ▸Large five-lobed leaves with coarse, irregular teeth, dull dark green, often on a red stalk
- ▸Black-edged yellow blotches of tar spot fungus on the leaves from midsummer
- ▸Paired samaras meeting at roughly a right angle — the classic helicopter
- ▸Fat green buds with dark-edged scales, in opposite pairs; bark smooth grey, flaking in plates with age
- ▸Clear, not milky, sap in the leaf stalk
How to know it
Paired winged fruits meeting at about a right angle — the helicopter every child throws
Sycamore. Field maple and Norway maple samaras are set much flatter, nearer 180 degrees.
Fat green buds with dark-edged scales; clear sap in the leaf stalk, not milky
Sycamore. Norway maple and field maple both bleed milky sap.
Wind-firm and salt-tolerant, so planted for shelter round upland farms and on exposed coasts
Sycamore.
The Tolpuddle Martyrs met beneath one in 1834, and one at a gap in Hadrian's Wall was illegally felled in 2023
Sycamore — the Sycamore Gap tree; two men were jailed for four years and three months each in July 2025.
Its specific epithet means 'false plane', for leaves that resemble the London plane's
Sycamore — Acer pseudoplatanus.
Its pale, hard, stainless wood was the traditional choice for kitchen tables, dairy bowls and violin backs
Sycamore.
Quick-fire facts
- •Acer pseudoplatanus — 'false plane tree', for the resemblance of its leaves to those of the plane
- •Not native: probably introduced in the Tudor period, now fully naturalised and often treated as invasive
- •Tar spot, the black-edged yellow leaf blotch, is caused by the fungus Rhytisma acerinum
- •Tolerant of wind and salt spray, so used for shelterbelts in upland and coastal Britain
- •The Tolpuddle Martyrs' Tree in Dorset, under which farmworkers met in 1834, is a sycamore
- •The Sycamore Gap tree beside Hadrian's Wall was felled illegally on 28 September 2023; Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers were each jailed for four years and three months in July 2025
- •In North America 'sycamore' means a plane (Platanus), and the sycamore fig of the Bible is a Ficus — three different trees share the name
- •The pale, odourless wood is used for kitchen ware, and figured 'fiddleback' sycamore for the backs of violins
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- Woodland Trust — Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus)
- Crown Prosecution Service — Pair who felled Sycamore Gap tree jailed