What a Plane Tree.

This is a blog post dedicated to a decidedly French tree, the plane tree.  It is a hybrid of American and Asian sycamore trees.  You can see them lining the streets almost anywhere in France, they line the streets.  They were supposedly planted by Napoleon's army because they were fast growing, hardwood, shade trees.  They are normally kept pruned (very French)  which is why they look so strange during the winter.  One very worrisome problem in this area is that there is a fungus (brought over by US soldiers during WW2) that is killing all of the plane trees, causing them to rot from the inside out. This has happened before with a disease that was brought over by Americans at the turn of the century that killed most of the centuries old grape vines but that's another story.  Other trees in the area -apple, pear, apricot, almond, pomegranate, cypress, birch, and of course olive trees. 

- handy hint wild almonds can be toxic do not eat them

Almond tree in bloom