Buttonwood

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. When I took genetics at Clemson, our professor talked about a family being studied who had tight skin around their chests. Our sycamore has something similar - bark that doesn’t stretch as the tree grows. As the tree matures, the outer layer of rough brown bark tends to slough off, eventually revealing the smooth white inner bark. That feature is beautiful and doesn’t harm the tree at all. However, sycamores do have a complicated structure of their wood that makes it brittle and likely to split. It isn’t a good street tree as its limbs tend to break and fall. As for lumber, traditionally it was used to make the tables butchers used as the wood was very hard, and one of its common names is buttonwood ‘cause people made buttons from them.