Hi everyone, I'm trying to identify some trees along Westbrook Mall with peeling bark and Acer-like lobed leaves. I'm thinking they are Platanus x acerfolia/London plane trees & I did find a historical article suggesting that there are some of these trees planted close to the UBC hospital building. Could someone confirm for me? Image attached. Thanks in advance! Alix
I'm having a lot of trouble seeing what's going on in that photo, but here's some info. Gerald Straley, in Trees of Vancouver, UBC Press, 1992, mentions under Platanus orientalis "three trees among many London Plane Trees in front of the University Hospital complex on the west side of Wesbrook Mall...". In the drawing in the book, the Oriental Plane tree leaf has lobes more indented than on the London Plane tree, which is what seems to be the case in your photo. Straley says at the beginning of the section: So some of the trees there are London Plane Trees. I think you've photographed one of the three other Platanus trees.
Yep, London Plane Platanus × hispanica (syn. P. × acerifolia). The leaves aren't deeply lobed enough for Oriental Plane P. orientalis.
Great, thank you both! I thought the same with the leaf lobes (not deep enough), so thanks Michael for confirming that.
Well, I'm attaching a version of the photo with red boxes around the leaves that made me think this was one with more indented lobes. These were the ones I could see most clearly. They looked similar to leaves on the tree at VanDusen Botanical Garden with a P. orientalis label. I know leaves vary on a tree. Maybe these were the odd ones out. Any chains of fruits? For London plane tree, they should be mostly in twos, for the other, a few more than that.
Public plantings down here sometimes have what appear to be mixtures, as though hybrid seedlings were raised and some of them favor the P. orientalis parent to a significant degree. Or both hybrids and pure P. orientalis were occasionally planted together. In older plantings conspicuous uniformity is mostly seen only when these consist of the hybrid cultivar 'Pyramidalis'. With age the branching habit and bark characteristic become quite apparent.
The majority of Platanus on the UBC campus are P. x hispanica 'Bloodgood', an easily propagated cultivar (by stem cuttings) that is somewhat resistant to anthracnose.