On our street these 100 year old boulevard trees have lumpy trunks. None of them appearing on the Internet show trunks looking like that.
Thank you, Ron. Do you know if these trees are burled inside (like a maple) or is this just a thickness in the bark? There is no sign of any growth ever having happened at those places where the lumps appear. I tried dragging a picture onto this message but that doesn't seem to work. I am new at this.
Here's a similar example. Don't know what the wood would be like compared to that from other planes, you'd need to cut one down. As a general point, plane wood is supposed to be quite decorative. PS the earliest scientific name (1770) for the London Plane is Platanus × hispanica Muenchh.; P. × acerifolia (Ait.) Willd. is a later name (1789).
Thank you for the picture - that is exactly what I mean. I really would like to find out the answer, but I guess cutting the trees down would be a little drastic. I am afraid that the City of Vancouver would be terribly upset if I cut down any of their 100 year old boulevard trees. They have quite a number of them in this area interspersed with Ulmus Americana, Acer macrophyllum, and Acer platanoides. Right now I would trade them all in for the blazing colours of the Norway maple, but I know I will soon be back appreciating the surprising colours of the London plane tree trunks. I am glad that they decided to change the name - "foliage like a maple" is so much easier to remember, and to pronounce.
