I live in Massachusetts USA. and for the last week or so some trees in my neighborhood
have been flowering (Aug 19-26 aprox). The trees are over 30 feet tall and have leaves shaped
similar in shape to sycamore leaves or maple leaves. The tree bark in not peeling like a
sycamore tree, however the flower looks something like a sycamore flower as shown in my tree
book.
 
        The flower on this tree is a cluster of individual stems, each stem has a number of
flower clusters similar in appearance to the sycamore flower picture in the book. In the book
it has only one round cluster per stem. This tree has multiple clusters. The flower smells
smilar to honeysuckle.
 
 
        The honey bees, bumble bees and and hornets have be all over this tree. Ascii art is a
very poor mechanism for conveying the flower structure but here is an attempt:
 
 
                                            \|/
                                            -o-
                                            /|\
            \|/                            /        \|/
-------------O-              ------------------------O-
            /|\                       \        |    /|\
                                       \|/    \|/
  sycamore                             -O-    -O-
    in                versus:          /|\    /|\
   bood
 
 
See
        http://www.hcs.ohio-state.edu/ODNR/Education/ohiotrees/sycamore.htm
 
for a nice image of a sycamore flower to get a better idea.
 
NOTE: For a very nice site with excellant images I found while trying to identify the tree
visit:
 
        http://www.hcs.ohio-state.edu/ODNR/Education/ohiotrees/treesindex.htm
 
Ohio's Trees - "Ohio's Trees is based on a Department of Natural Resources brochure of the same
name, original text by Guy L. Denny.
 
 
        Does anyone have a guess about what kind of tree it is?
 
        Thanks,