Hi neighbor, my name is American Sycamore
Platanus Occidentalis
Trees like me live in Jackson Park.
‘This genus has survived for 100 million years, since the late Cretaceous Period.”
“The cerulean warbler, a once-abundant migratory bird, preferred nesting in old sycamore trees. Habitat destruction helped endanger sycamores and cerulean warblers.”
Learn more about the American Sycamore in Midwestern Native Shrubs and Trees — Gardening Alternatives to Nonnative Species: An Illustrated Guide
Did you know?
640 of us are being evicted from Jackson Park.
The proposed Obama Presidential Center would clear cut all of us - 640 trees - currently living in a building-free portion of the Mississippi Flyway.
According to the 2018 inventory of the proposed 19.3 acre building site, each year, we trees remove 5.8 tons of carbon and 341.5 pounds of air pollution. During the course of our lifetimes, we have stored 203.8 tons of carbon and contributed to the avoidance of 9,591 cubic feet of rainwater runoff.
Learn more about me and other trees at the Biodiversity Heritage Library