Platanus mexicana Moric.

Platanus mexicana was considered by the American botanist Charles Sprague Sargent to be ‘perhaps the handsomest of all Plane-trees’ (Sargent 1896; an opinion endorsed by Henry John Elwes in Elwes & Henry 1906–1913). In an adaptation to reduce transpiration in hot dry conditions, the underside of the leaf is usually whitish with a dense matting of starry hairs – although this species’ range also extends to tropical cloud-forests where water-loss will be less of an issue. The leaves have three, or rarely five lobes which taper from the base but which can be quite long and which, in contrast to those of most temperate Platanus, are seldom toothed. The flaking bark tends to be predominantly creamy-white, reflecting sunlight as another part of this species’ strategy to cope with the subtropical environment of Guatemala and southern Mexico.

In their revision of the New World Platanus, Nixon & Poole 2003 distinguished var. interior Nixon & J.M.Poole, from the central Mexican states of Guanajuato, Querétaro and San Luis Potosí, whose leaves are only sparsely tomentose beneath and whose fruit-balls are carried two or three together, rather than in inflorescences of about five to seven; this variety is not however recognised by Plants of the World Online (2025). In 2025 the latter resource did, however, recognise P. lindeniana M.Martens & Galeotti, which was one of several Mexican species described in the 19th and earlier 20th centuries; P. lindeniana was considered by Nixon & Poole (2003) to be entirely typical of P. mexicana var. mexicana. Purely for convenience, all of these taxa are treated together here as P. mexicana. However, some of the trees that used to be treated as P. mexicana were described by Nixon & Poole (2003) as P. rzedowskii Nixon & J.M.Poole, being obviously distinct in their consistently five-lobed leaves and in particular their seed-balls which are carried singly. Older plants cultivated as P. mexicana may therefore represent either of these two generally accepted taxa, an issue discussed further within the article for P. rzedowskii; for a longer treatment, see Wilson Landscape Nursery 2025.

Another potential source of confusion concerns the Mexican and Texan populations first described by Otto Kuntze in 1891 as P. orientalis var. palmeri but described by Merritt Fernald in 1901 (using the same type specimen) as P. glabrata, and equated with P. mexicana by some authorities. These populations differ obviously from P. mexicana sensu Nixon & Poole in their much less hairy leaves which consequently do not look silvered underneath and which also have characteristically five rather than three lobes. Purely for simplicity’s sake once again, these populations are discussed further here as the species P. glabrata.

The chequered history of Platanus occidentalis in cultivation in the UK has helped to saddle all of the genus’ New World representatives with a reputation of being difficult to grow, north of their natural climate zones. P. mexicana, which as interpreted by Nixon & Poole (2003) has a wide natural range but which sometimes grows among tropical tree species, is certainly often assumed to be a tender plant. However, it is worth observing that – to take one example – Quercus (oak) species from the mountain forests in Mexico mostly thrive in north-west European gardens with maritime microclimates while the ‘white oaks’ of the United States, which are hardier in terms of the winter cold they can tolerate but seem more dependent on a long, hot growing season, frequently fail in these same gardens. A Platanus mexicana (sensu lato) grown in 2002 from Frankis 134 at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens in southern England did turn out to be maladapted to the local conditions, making growths up to three metres long each summer which were cut back the following winter; it has since been removed (Tree Register 2025). At the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, a plant accessioned as P. mexicana from an unrecorded cultivated source is thriving, but its strongly toothed leaves, which are scarcely white underneath, indicate that it is P. occidentalis or even P. × hispanica (pers. obs.). P. mexicana may still merit further experimentation in other northerly gardens – something which should in turn build up a clearer picture of where its preferences and its limits really lie.

Within the warmer summers of the eastern United States, trees grown as Platanus mexicana have been successfully grown since 2012 as far north at the Bartlett Arboretum and Gardens at Stamford, Connecticut (North American Hardiness Zone 7a; Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 2025), while large specimens can be found further south in Virginia (R. Olsen & M. Weathington pers. comms. to John Grimshaw for New Trees). Another promising tree, sourced as the southerly form P. lindeniana, was planted in 1999 at the JC Raulston Arboretum in North Carolina (Hardiness Zone 8a) and had reached 17 m by 2015 (JC Raulston Arboretum 2025), forming a beautifully shaped tree with a straight stem and this species’ characteristic and mostly white bark. From Texas westwards to California, Mexican plane trees (of whatever species) are now widely planted as street trees, tolerating periodic drought and extreme heat (Wilson Landscape Nursery 2025).

Platanus mexicana is also proving successful in New Zealand. In the Church Gardens at Oakura (North Island), a tree grown from seed collected in Mexico by the Aokautere Science Centre (now the New Zealand Poplar and Willow Trust) and with the characteristically three-lobed leaves of P. mexicana sensu Poole and Nixon, was planted in 1991 and by 2024 had a dbh of 60 cm (G. Church pers. comm. to John Grimshaw).