Question

Which plant is described by these clues? The genus name comes from a Greek word meaning broad, given to a tree the ancients planted for the width of the shade it threw. Each winter bud is hidden inside the swollen, hollow base of the leaf stalk, so a bare twig shows leaf scars with no bud standing above them. A papery {stipule} wraps right around the shoot at every {node} and falls away early, leaving a thin collar-scar encircling the twig. Its tiny {monoecious} flowers have no petals worth the name and sit crammed into dense spherical heads strung along a hanging stalk, pollinated entirely by wind. The species epithet says only that the leaves look like a maple's, and at 6 to 10 inches (15 to 25 cm) wide they do, except that they are set singly up the shoot rather than in pairs. The trunk sheds its dead outer bark in irregular plates, leaving a camouflage patchwork of cream, olive and tan that never lets city soot build up. Unfolding spring leaves are wrapped in a loose felt of branched {trichomes} that blows away as they harden, prickling the eyes and airways of anyone working beneath. Bristly seed balls about 1 inch (2.5 cm) across usually hang two to a stalk all winter, one of its parent species carrying them singly and the other in threes to sixes. Reaching 70 to 100 feet (21 to 30 m), it endures compacted pavement soil, road salt, drought and brutal pollarding better than almost any other big tree, and street specimens commonly pass 200 years. Quarter-sawn, its timber shows dense reddish-brown flecks against a pale ground, and cabinetmakers buy it under the name lacewood. A cross of garden origin between an eastern North American tree and a southeast European one, it was planted along the streets and squares of Britain's capital from the 18th century onward and ended up taking that city's name for its own.

Accepted Answer

Platanus × acerifolia

Name That Plant #045