Buttonwood

As I left the cardiologist's office and approached the feeder-road toward route 40 I saw this old Sycamore tree across the intersection.  It too was getting on in tree years and had some scars and missing limbs but it was still doing it's job of drawing the eye and holding up the sky.

A Field Guide to Trees and Shrubs, by George Petrides - 1972 printing

Sycamore – Platanus occidentalis

A very large lowland tree with distinctive mottled brown bark that flakes off in (large) jigsaw-puzzle-like pieces, exposing yellowish and whitish under-bark …. 

Old World Sycamores that are often planted in North American cities are called Plane Trees.  The Sycamore is considered to be the most massive tree of the eastern United States, although the Tulip-tree may occasionally be taller, but unlike the Sequoias and Redwoods of California the Sycamore is old at 500-600 years (puts us into perspective eh?).  The hard coarse-grained wood is used for boxes, barrels, butchers’ blocks, cabinetwork and furniture (but is terrible for firewood).  The native Indians used the trunks for massive dugouts (a kind of massive canoe made by laboriously burning and scraping away the resulting seared wood).  One such canoe has been reported to have been 65 feet long and weighed 9000 lbs (@4082kg).  Twigs and leaves will be eaten by deer and muskrats.  Cavities in the tree will be used for nest and shelter by wood-duck, opossums, and raccoons.  

I have been unable to find any reference to my title - Buttonwood - but when I was young this tree was always called the Buttonwood because the 'common knowledge' was that all the wooden buttons of the time were made from the wood of this tree.