Sycamore Trees

On April 29th I went to The Park of Roses for a walk. While I was there I discovered a path that I had never walked down before. This was pretty surprising because I have been to The Park of Roses dozens of times and thought I knew it in and out. This was a dirt path that followed along the creek. As I was walking down the path I saw quite a few very large sycamore trees. The one in the picture above is my favorite. It has a huge area that is hallow. A person could easily get inside of this tree except that the hallow part is facing the water and there isn't an easy way to get to it. This made me think of the the book The Botany of Desire where Michael Pollen writes about Johnny Appleseed and how he was thought to sleep in hallowed out sycamore trees. Johnny Appleseed was an interesting character! I had always wondered how in the world a person could sleep in a hallowed out tree until I saw this one at The Park of Roses. There were probably a lot more huge sycamore trees before the pioneers came along and Johnny Appleseed was always moving west right in front of the action so now I understand how he could sleep inside of these hallowed out trees. How he went barefoot all year long is a mystery I will never understand. 

During my walk along the creek at The Park of Roses I got to see all kinds of wildflowers and fungus and I even found 3 morels. I also got to quickly pet a dog that was walking by. I stopped and watched a woodpecker for awhile. It slowly started getting dark so I walked back the way I came and headed back home.