Urban naturalist Gabriel Willow was leading a group of birdwatchers around the Midtown square in search of migrating birds. He pointed to the tall, graceful trees branching over the paths—their patterned bark; their soft, pale green leaves—and named them for us. They were London planetrees, and no birds flitted in their boughs.
Devoid of most critters, the London planetrees are about as sterile as trees can be. And they’re just about everywhere. You might not yet have a strong feeling about these trees, but they’re probably familiar to you. New York City is home to over 87,000 London planetrees, per the Department of Parks and Recreation’s 2015They’re prized in cities throughout the temperate zone for their hardiness and generic good looks—“the city tree par excellence,” according to Henry Lawrence’s book.
London planes survived in the city well enough to serve as decorations in an era where trees were mostly seen as objects of aesthetic appeal. In later decades, they’ve also been praised for their role in resisting climate change.about stewarding urban nature, Stephanie Foo drew motivation from a London plane that annually sequesters an estimated 10,500 tons of carbon dioxide.
In my hundreds of hours birdwatching in New York City’s parks, I’ve found that I rarely see birds foraging in a London plane, and even then only when there are no other options. In Bryant Park, species that are typically arboreal can be seen foraging on the ground, which Willow, the naturalist, speculates is due to the sterility of the ubiquitous planetrees. One native oak tree can support hundreds of species of caterpillars, while an American sycamore can support fewer than 50.
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