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Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-149
American Sycamore
Platanus occidentalis
American Sycamore grows faster and fatter than any other native hardwood - champion specimens exceed 11 feet across the trunk - and its heavy, constant leaf and bark litter makes it a genuine mulch and biomass engine if the mess is treated as a yield rather than a nuisance. It needs consistently wet ground, doing best at the low end of a drainage, a pond overflow, or a swale sump; on dry upland clay it scorches and declines. It is one of the few large trees that tolerates growing near black walnut, a genuine convenience given how few plants share that tolerance, and deer largely leave it alone. In a hot, dry climate its fruit and leaf hairs can trigger hay-fever-like symptoms, so it is best planted downwind of anywhere people sleep or work outdoors.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 4–9
- Soil
- Sand · Silt · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moderate · Wet
Vertical layer
Canopy- Soil pH
- 6–8
- Plant type
- Deciduous Tree
- Mature height
- 75–100 ft
- Mature spread
- 75–100 ft
- Plant spacing
- 60 ft
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- Seed
Keep exploring
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American Beech
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American Chestnut
Castanea dentata
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American Elm
Ulmus americana
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American Holly
Ilex opaca
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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