Can anyone identify this tree?

[MattR]

I'm building a layout of Summerseat on the ELR, and I was wondering if anyone could identify the species of the rather prominent tree that sits by the Brooksbottoms viaduct (on the left side of the viaduct in the photos, the one that's half changing to orange/red in the top photo) as seen in the following photos. I'd like to get a model scenery tree that looks somewhat like it. Being from the U.S., I'm not up on my British Isles/European tree species. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by MattR
Wrong tree!

[woodenhead]

I so wanted it to be a ....... Larch, but alas it isn't.

Edited August 1, 2023 by woodenhead

[Southernman46]

Beat me to it ............................ 🤣

 

 

It looks quite Lime ish though ......................

Edited August 1, 2023 by Southernman46

[Darlington_Shed]

3 hours ago, MattR said:

Wrong tree!

 

Actually, I think it's the right tree - at least, that's the tree I found from the viaduct pictures.

 

As for species, I'm going with sycamore, based on leaves and bark. The leaves are lime-like as per southernman46's suggestion but I don't think the bark matches. Bark looks quite birch-like but the leaves don't match.

[AY Mod]

1 minute ago, Darlington_Shed said:

I'm going with sycamore, based on leaves and bark.

 

Likewise.

[MattR]

Thank you, gentlemen! On closer inspection on Google streetview, it most definitely a sycamore -- not so foreign after all!

 

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by MattR

[Jeremy Cumberland]

22 minutes ago, MattR said:

Thank you, gentlemen! On closer inspection on Google streetview, it most definitely a sycamore -- not so foreign after all!

 

 

Well, they are to Britain. A present from the Romans: sycamores and rabbits.

[pH]

Since we’ve had a reference to Monty Python, I’ll quote Yogi Bear (from many years earlier):

 

”It looks more …

… like a sycamore …

… to me!”

 

(I couldn’t find the clip.)

Edited August 1, 2023 by pH

[APOLLO]

 

Brit15

[Southernman46]

13 hours ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

Well, they are to Britain. A present from the Romans: sycamores.

Sycamore - just giant weeds ............................

[Mallard60022]

12 hours ago, APOLLO said:

 

Brit15

Hornytree?

[Nearholmer]

I was just going to suggest Hornbeam.

 

Sycamore isn’t quite a totally useless weed, because the timber is good for turning and carving to make kitchen utensils, things like rolling pins, ladles, short brush handles etc., which might be why the Romans grew it - it covers a lot of the uses that softish plastics do now. It carves almost like hard wax, very easy and no tendency for the tool to get distracted and start following the grain. It’s no good for anything involving impacts though, because it’s short-grained and snaps like a carrot. The fact that it grows so fast might make it a firewood crop, but my recollection is that it burns a bit quick and spits a lot.

 

 

Edited August 2, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Southernman46]

I was approaching it from the PW Engineers perspective - like buddliea & elder 😪

[Flying Pig]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Sycamore isn’t quite a totally useless weed, because the timber is good for turning and carving to make kitchen utensils

 

They're also known for attracting unusual migrant birds, particularly in late autumn: something to look at between trains.  Later on, you can go and have a piece of pie made with the aid of a rolling pin and a short-handled brush (to glaze the crust).  Seems like the definition of useful to me.

[MattR]

When I was a kid, my sisters and I used to throw sycamore "balls" at each other. They were fun to explode on the concrete as well.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

I hated having to clear sycamore keys out of the gutters, Nothing else was anything like the problem of sycamore keys.

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Flying Pig said:

They're also known for attracting unusual migrant birds, particularly in late autumn: something to look at between trains.  Later on, you can go and have a piece of pie made with the aid of a rolling pin and a short-handled brush (to glaze the crust). 

Four and twenty blackbirds?

[MattR]

Very interesting. Apparently there are some differences. Here in the U.S. we have the American Sycamore that has the seed balls. Apparently what is called a sycamore in the U.K. is actually a type of maple tree (known in the U.S. as a Sycamore Maple) that has the seed keys. 

 

 

Edited August 2, 2023 by MattR

[billbedford]

On 01/08/2023 at 20:21, Jeremy Cumberland said:

Well, they are to Britain. A present from the Romans: sycamores and rabbits.

 

Mmm, rabbits were introduced by the Normans. There are no know Anglo-Saxon names for them, the Normans called them coney, which rhymed with honey. 

Sycamores were introduced into Scotland in the 15th century. 

The Romans were innocent, this time. 

[KingEdwardII]

On 03/08/2023 at 09:17, billbedford said:

The Romans were innocent, this time. 

Except they weren't - they've been caught red handed with rabbit bones at Fishbourne:

 

https://news.sky.com/story/rabbits-arrived-in-britain-1-000-years-earlier-than-thought-11696820

 

Yours, Mike.

[billbedford]

One rabbit doesn't breed and fill the landscape:

 

From https://heritagesuffolk.wordpress.com/2021/04/02/roman-hare-brooches/

 

 

Quote

If these brooches were manufactured in Britain, they are likely to be hares rather than rabbits because archaeological evidence suggests that there were no sustained rabbit populations here until the Medieval period. Evidence for very occasional rabbits from Roman Britain includes six rabbit bones recovered from a Roman pit at Lynford in Norfolk, and recent re-analysis of animal bones from the Roman ‘palace’ at Fishbourne in West Sussex revealed the presence of a rabbit bone. This bone was radiocarbon dated to the 1st century AD and the lack of butchery marks on it possibly suggests that the rabbit was kept as a pet, likely in a tiled or walled enclosure the Romans called a ‘leporarium’.

 

Of course, the Romans may have had a cunning rabbit contraceptive...

[mezzoman253]

On 01/08/2023 at 22:18, APOLLO said:

 

Brit15

I would think it one of the hardwoods.