Calendar November 2015: Sycamore

November: Sycamore

The Memoir of Our Friendship

(Acer pseudoplatanus, Order: Sapindales, Family: Sapindaceae, Genus: Acer )

When walking on a footpath alongside meadows and a wetland in a frosty November morning recently, I stopped at a small wooden bridge.  Leaves after leaves were falling from a tall tree  (not a sycamore, though) in the tranquil windless late autumn sunny morning.  The sound of the leaves falling was so subtle.  How are they falling without wind? Maybe the frost from the previous night made the crucial push to detach the leaves from the branches. The subtle sound told me a farewell to the autumn.

As walking further, there were 3 or 4 or more big sycamore trees at a farm.  While the footpath was covered with yellow leaves, a man (a farmer?) was busying himself with sweeping the leaves in his garden ( or his woodland?).  It was a bit of contrast between them.  

The leaves of sycamore look similar to London plane's, but sycamore actually doesn't belong to Platanus family.  Its fruits with wings show it belongs to maple family.  Sycamore, alas, is actually not a native tree, but it has been naturalised in Britain.  Nowadays we can see them often in gardens, parks, or even in woodlands.

A big sycamore tree used to stand on our previous neighbour's ground at our fence.  Next to the tree, a big ash tree used to stand on our ground.  The two trees stood next to each other like a twin.  Alas, they were cut down as being too big and too close to the both houses.  I made a relief print as a memoir of the trees and our friendship with your neighbours who were always so friendly to us from the beginning when we moved in.  But sadly they moved out to live within our town but elsewhere.  Sycamore tree makes me a little bit sentimental.