November 2025: Sycamore Maple

By Andy Mead​​

The November Tree of the month is this beautiful specimen in the Lexington Cemetery that has a confusing name: The Sycamore Maple (Acer pseudoplatanus). The confusion is clarified when you know that the first part of its Latin name means it is a maple and the second part means “false sycamore.”

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Sycamore Maple in Lexington Cemetery, Lexington, Kentucky. By Greg Doyle.

It is a fast-growing tree that can reach more than 100 feet in height and spread to 25 to 40 feet with a broad, rounded crown. It has insignificant flowers in the spring and is not one of those maples that puts on a flashy fall show. The bark is gray, but peels away to create a mottled gray-brown look, like a sycamore.

Like other maples, it spreads its seeds with many winged samaras, the “helicopters” that spin to the ground and can be carried by the wind.

Samaras of a sycamore maple. Berg-Ahorn (Acer pseudoplatanus), Seifenbaumgewächse (Sapindaceae) - Österreich/Austria/Autriche: Oberösterreich, Hausruckviertel, Kien NW Attnang-Puchheim (Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported)

The Sycamore Maple is native to Europe and Asia (where it is called a Sycamore). It was planted by the Romans and in Medieval times. In Europe it is seen in windbreaks and hedgerows, and its hard, creamy-white wood is used in making furniture. Because of its resonance, it was used to make Stradivarius violins. It now can be found, but is not always welcomed, on several other continents.

​As mentioned above, it is an attractive tree that is often planted along streets and in urban parks and large yards. But there are a few strikes against it: First, it is not a native tree and natives often grow better and support more insects and birds than their exotic cousins. Second, it produces a lot of offspring that can form thickets. For this reason, it has been banned or discouraged in some Northeastern states, as well as in Australia and New Zealand. Finally, the samaras have been linked to seasonal pasture myopathy (called atypical myopathy in Europe), a muscle disorder in horses. In North America, the disorder is more commonly linked to the Box Elder (acer negundo).

Sycamore Maple leaves in early autumn, Lexington Cemetery, Lexington, KY. Greg Doyle.

As an aside: Lexington already has so many maple trees that Trees Lexington doesn’t usually plant or give them away. That’s because too many of one species can produce a monoculture that can cause widespread losses when a disease or insects target the species.

Here are some websites that will tell you more about this species:

https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/acer-pseudoplatanus/ (This one includes a video.)

https://mississippigreens.com/sycamore-maple-tree/

https://thesycamoretree.org/sycamore-vs-maple/