Hello all, This tree is in Darwin's Garden in England. I had thought maybe it was a species of maple but now I'm not sure. I only have a picture of the leaf (sorry, should have gotten other features). Any help identifying would be appreciated.
I think you're right Tyrlych. I looked up a photo of P.acerifolia bark and it matches what I saw (I didn't take a photo of the bark but it was quite distinctive and so I remember it well). What an appropriate species name, acerifolia; makes sense why I thought it was a maple at first. I've looked it up and seen photos of P.acerifolia leaves with slightly different shapes, so I guess there is some variation in the leaf morphology of these hybrids. Thanks for your help.
London Plane. @ Tyrlich, WCutler, David: the scientific name Platanus × hispanica (1770) takes precedence over Platanus × acerifolia (1789).
My only comment was to note my consternation caused by what looked like opposite leaves, which it should not have as a Platanus. And if it's going to cause confusion with Acer, then how appropriate, even useful, it was to have "acerifolia" in its name. Too bad some other guy got in there first with "hispanica".
'some other guy' was Baron Otto Freiherr von Münchhausen, no less . . . can't complain about someone with a name like that!! :-) He also described, among others, Quercus coccinea, Q. marilandica, and Q. palustris.
That seems extraordinary that a German botanist would have been the one in 1770 to describe a tree from the eastern US. I'm impressed by more than his name.
He will have been very wealthy, no doubt had plants sent to his garden / parkland from America. All three of those oaks are American ;-) There's a full list of all the new taxa he described at IPNI here. Of course, Linnaeus also described (and described very many more) American plants.
