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Without seeing a picture, I'd guess powdery mildew on a sycamore. If that's the case, its almost always more annoying than harmful. And yes, it can make you feel itchy.
Exactly my thoughts on both possibilities. However as some poster's have already mentioned, with out pictures and location, it's tough to say for sure. The white spots definitely sound like powdery mildew, even the white mealybug or even white fly, but it seems they would have mentioned insect movement had it been so.
Sycamore/london Planetree definitely have an iritating leaf hairs on their surface and even dealing with the dead leaves will cause this reaction even without any disease or blite. They do have a maplelike appearance as far as the leave structure. The key would be a desciption of the bark on the trunk. Other than that without any further visual aids for us it's tough to tell. It could also be a Liquid Amber. They can grow straight and tall/narrow.
Does'nt sound like it's killing the tree, so maybe when it goes dormant you can rake the leaves up and burn them and see what happens next year. It's tough to tell you what to do without seeing the tree and the heighth, etc. Even spraying would be tough on a tall tree.
Definitely could be London Plane tree. It's a hybred and out in the southwest where I come from it is suseptable to white powdery mildew, but it does'nt really seem to hurt the tree so much as make it look unsightly. All native sycamores on the west coast of the USA , both California & Arizona sycamores are suseptable to a natural occuring fungus called "Anthracnose" which can defoliate the tree of it's leaves. Perhaps this may look familiar of the symptoms:
There is also an advantage however to the leaf and small branch die-off. This is what usually gives the tough sycamore it's picturesque appearance in nature with it's twisted branch look.
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