which timber for drumsticks?!

[santaman2000]

santaman2000, that's a totally different seed to our Sycamore.....

Without looking them up, I suspect it's also completely different to the California Sycamore and Arizona Sycamore you referenced.

 

[General Strike]

Those are all new ones to me; I'm only familiar with the one RV mentioned. It's working qualities are much the same as you mentioned for the European ones.

This is a good example of why the usefulness of common names is limited. 'Sycamore' can also refer to fig trees in some languages. What you have there is what we in Britain would refer to as a 'plane' tree. London is full of them - they were given to Queen Victoria and have the advantage of pollution resistance as they constantly shed bark plates, essentially self-cleaning the soot that is deposited on them.

The problem with the Latin names is that most people struggle to remember them and usually need constant practice to keep abreast of them.

I have similar issues with translating common names between English and German. I pointed out what I thought was 'Fat Hen' the other day and my wife said 'No, it isn't'. It turns out that 'Fette Henne' is a mushroom known in English as 'Cauliflower fungus', and 'Fetthenne' is Stonecrop, so the common names didn't carry across - Fat Hen is called 'Weisser Gansefuss' - 'White Goose-foot' in German.

 

[forrestdweller]

The problem with the Latin names is that most people struggle to remember them and usually need constant practice to keep abreast of them. QUOTE]

thanks to doing something foolish (and so far useless....) when i was younger i have no problem with latin names....

all the maple i've found so far is not straight enough (unless i'd chop down a tree and start whittling dowels....) so i guess i either have to search for another species of tree or find some ready-made dowels somewhere
(WHY f.g.s. do homo sapiens always come to me when they have strange ideas ?!)