|
London Planetrees in the Music Concourse that sits between the Academy of Sciences and the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The same type of tree is also planted in San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza. (Mike Desisto/Flickr)
You’ve likely crossed paths with this eye-catching tree at some point while wandering through San Francisco. Tourists have noticed them while walking up to the DeYoung Museum or the California Academy of Sciences. And locals are sure to have seen them on their way to City Hall. Anyone who has tied the knot there or protested at Civic Center Plaza probably caught one in the background of their photos.
The hybridized sycamore, technically called a London Planetree, is notable not for its colorful flowers or showy green leaves. Rather, people marvel at the sycamore’s knobby bare branches in the fall and winter, which make any cityscape look like something out of a Tim Burton movie.
“Why do they look so scary?” asked Bay Curious listener Gautam M. Shah.
While Shah sees spook in the sycamores, Allison McCarthy, a park manager for the City of San Francisco, sees a remarkably resilient urban plant.
“It can handle urban pollution. It can handle root compaction. It can just handle the hard life it is for a tree to grow up in the city,” said McCarthy.
That may be why landscape architect Douglas Baylis decided to put the trees into his redesign of the Civic Center Plaza back in 1961. The design originally included olive trees as well, but they were removed in the late 1990s. The original London Planetrees, now roughly 70 years old, remain.
Row of newly planted London Planetrees in Civic Center Plaza circa 1962. Gardeners had not started aggressively pruning the trees yet, which is what gives them their current knobbly look. (San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library)
As for why the trees look “scary” or not “natural” to some, McCarthy says that’s a result of the aggressive style of pruning the city uses, called “pollarding.” Tree trimmers use this style when they want to keep trees at a certain height. In the case of the sycamores, that’s 15 to 20 feet tall.
Pollarding doesn’t hurt the trees, McCarthy says. In fact, the trees may live longer because they don’t get too tall and fall over. Plus, by pollarding, you don’t have to worry about the trees interfering with the power lines.
The knobby ends of the sycamore’s branches form because of the scarring from the city’s yearly pruning in the fall.
“It just shows the power of trees that they're able to heal over every cut every year,” McCarthy said.
– Pauline Bartolone |
