A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1469 entries
sycamore
Sycamore names at least three unrelated trees, which is the whole problem with it. In Britain it is a large maple with five-lobed leaves and winged seeds that spin down like helicopters. In North America it is a plane tree with mottled peeling bark and round bristly fruit. In the Middle East it is a fig, the sycomore fig, which is the original owner of the name.
Etymology
The word is Greek and joins the words for fig and mulberry, describing the Middle Eastern tree, which has fig-like fruit and mulberry-like leaves. That tree appears in the Bible, so the name was thoroughly familiar in Europe long before anyone needed a word for the maple or the plane.