northeast-flora-and-fauna

At Duke Farms they're working to identify and label more of their trees and shrubs. When I saw the sign I figured I'd wander over and see whether they had planted an American Sycamore or a London Planetree ; the 2 (related) trees look very similar. Imagine my surprise when I read the sign saying that this was a Ginkgo tree. This wasn't a misidentification - this time - on my part. The smooth, patchy-white bark clearly indicates some sort of sycamore [1]. So what happened? The first thing to realize is that there was a fairly large Ginkgo tree a short distance away, and the sign was no doubt intended for that tree. There is a small chance that some Duke Farms visitor really thought that the sycamore was a Ginkgo tree and tried to be helpful by moving the sign. Far more likely though is that this was intended as a practical joke.  As jokes go, it probably doesn't work well: Some people who know virtually nothing about trees might be fooled, but fooling these folks isn...