Sycamore is often named when people choose their least favourite trees. It could be the leaves that let them down; none of the delicacy of field maple for example, and those ugly black spots they often attract.
But winter is a good time to look again at sycamore. And the bark is good place to start. It's striking that there is so much variety. That can be a problem for those trying to identify winter trees when using guides which rarely acknowledge variety.
Guides to tree identification on the internet are easy to find and they may refer to bark. The Forestry Commission and the Natural History Museum are helpful but probably the best is that of the Woodland Trust. Even so the picture of sycamore bark that comes up is very different to those I see here.
It's worth simply googling 'tree bark identification' under images to see many pictures. Not 100% reliable but often a quick fix. And browsing like that avoids the problem of having to guess the species beforehand when you have little idea what you're looking at.
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