Platanus ×acerifolia
ζ*Platanus × acerifolia (Aiton) Willd. ζ*, London plane, has been collected wild in Auckland where seedlings or saplings occasionally grow in street gutters, crevices in walls, or waste places, in the vicinity of cultivated parent trees. Planes are very commonly grown as street trees in Auckland as well as most other towns and cities of N.Z. A large tree with characteristic pale grey flaking bark (only be seen in trees large enough to have a well-developed trunk). Very young shoots and lvs covered in a dense pale brown tomentum of mostly stellate hairs, eventually becoming glabrous or glabrate except towards base of lamina veins. Lamina to 26 × 30 cm on adult shoots, 5-7-lobed; lobes extending to c. ⅓ of distance to midrib, ± triangular-ovate, entire or with 1-4 teeth on each side and sometimes several near base, the middle lobe slightly > lateral lobes; base of whole lamina truncate or cordate with a deep rounded sinus. Infl. rachis pendulous, to c. 25 cm long at fruiting. Fl. heads 1-3-(4); peduncles very short. Fr. heads globular, 2.5-3.8 cm diam., bristly, yellowish brown. (Cultivated hybrid, 1988).
