Sycamore Snow

Here in the city of Pittsburgh we dodged the frost bullet on Tuesday morning.  The temperature fell to 28o but the air was so dry that no frost formed.

Our flowering trees were untouched and by yesterday morning the petals were falling and the seed balls on the London plane trees were on the verge of disintegrating (shown above).

As I walked to work a gust of wind sent the petals and seeds into the air.  The petals fell fast and drifted into the gutters but the plane tree (“sycamore”) seeds on their tiny parachutes floated like snowflakes.  It was beautiful … and impossible to photograph.

On a warm sunny morning we had sycamore snow.

(photo by Jebulon on Wikimedia Commons.  Click on the image to see the original)

3 thoughts on “Sycamore Snow

  1. I get this “snow” from mid winter on when the finches are dining on the seedballs of the sycamore tree…funny there aren’t more of these trees around with all the seeds flying thru the air…guess that is how I got a baby 6 years ago, transplanted it and now it’s over 15 feet…

  2. I have a sycamore in front of my apartment (not a plane tree). The seeds began to fall in late December. They get tracked inside daily and are a pain to sweep or vacuum every day. Mother Nature should stay outside 🙂 I think there are still some lodged under the hood of my car!

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