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Photographer Jack Dykinga finds it incongruous that these giant trees provide a canopy of cover in the middle of the desert. Along creek beds and other riparian areas is where you find the Arizona sycamore.

Featured in the November 1992 Issue of Arizona Highways

BY: Jack Dykinga

SYCAMORES I'VE KNOWN

remember I remember my first encounter with the tree. After crashing through canyon-bottom thickets, catclaw tearing at my arms and legs, I suddenly found myself beneath a cool canopy of Platanus wrightii, the Arizona sycamore.

They seem out of place in the desert; yet where there's water, you'll find these giants of riparian habitat lining the streambeds. In the fall, they form ribbons of pinks, oranges, and golds, marking the watercourses.

For me, they are photographs waiting to be taken. Smitten I am by these lovely trees.

But I'm not the only one. Over the years, folks in seven Arizona counties have named at least nine streams along which these natives occur . . . Sycamore Creek.

A sycamore amid autumn-hued maples (PRECEDING PANEL, PAGE 25) in the Chiricahua Mountains' South Fork of Cave Creek. (PAGES 26 AND 27) Roots of a huge sycamore in Rattlesnake Canyon, the Galiuro Mountains. (PAGES 28 AND 29) A sycamore forest in the Galiuro's Turkey Creek Canyon. (BELOW) Sycamore leaves, watercress, and grasses in Turkey Creek Canyon. (RIGHT) A sycamore leaf on a rock in Aravaipa Creek beneath a stand of cottonwood trees.