MAGNOLIACE^. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



17 



LIEIODENDRON. 



Flower-bud inclosed in a two-valved stipular caducous spathe. Flowers perfect, 

 solitary, terminal ; sepals 3 ; petals 6, in two rows ; anthers extrorse ; piatils indefinite, 

 imbricated. Carpels samarseform, indeliiscent, deciduous from the receptacle at ma- 

 turity. 



Liriodendron, Linnasus, Gen. Suppl. 9. — A. L. de Jussleu, 

 Gen. 281. — EncUichor, Gen. 83S. — Meisner, Gen. 3. ~ 



Gray, Gen. III. \. 63, t. 25. — Bentliam & Hooker, Gen. \. 

 19. — BaiUoii, Hkt. PL i. 188. 

 Tulipifera, Adanson, Fam. PL ii. 365. 



A tree, with fleshy roots, deeply furrowed brown bitter hark, and branchlets marked by round leaf- 

 scars and narrow stipular rings. Buds compressed, obtuse, their scales membranaceous stipules joined 

 at the edges, tardily deciduous ' after the unfolding of the leaf, which is recurved in vernation by the 

 bending down of the petiole near the middle, bringing the apex of the eonduphcate blade to the base of 

 the bud.^ Leaves alternate, smooth, long-petioled, feather-veined, sinuatoly four-lobed, heart-shaped, 

 truncate or slightly wedge-shaped at the base, the extremity truncate by a broad shallow sinus minutely 

 apiculate.^ Flowers pedunculate, cup-shaped, conspicuous ; spathe membranaceous. Sepals imbricated 

 in the bud, spreading or reflexed, ovate-lanceolate, concave, greenish white, early-deciduous. Petals 

 imbricated in the bud, hypogynous, erect, broadly ovate, rounded at the extremity, light green, reticu- 

 late-veined, marked with orange at the base, deciduous. Stamens indefinite, imbricated in many ranks 

 upon the base of the receptacle, two thirds the length of the petals, deciduous ; filaments filiform, half 

 the length of the elongated linear two-celled anthers adnate to the outer face o£ the connective, the con- 

 tiguous cells opening longitudinally. Pistils densely imbricated on the elongated sessile receptacle into 

 a spindle-shaped column j ovary inserted by a broad face, one-celled; style narrowly acuminate, laterally 

 flattened, appressed ; stigma short, unilateral, recurved at the summit ; ovules two, collateral, suspended 

 from near the middle of the ventral suture, anatropous. Fruit a narrow light brown cone formed of 

 the closely imbricated carpels, which fall when ripe from the slender elongated axis persistent during 

 winter.* Carpels dry and woody, indehiscent, consisting of a laterally compressed four-ribbed pericarp, 

 the lateral ribs confluent into the margins of the large wing-like lanceolate compressed style marked 

 vertically with a thin sutural Kne. Seeds suspended, two, or single by abortion ; testa thin, dry, coria- 

 ceous, and marked with the narrow prominent raphe. Embryo minute, at the base of the fleshy albu- 

 men, its radicle next the hilum. 



The genus Liriodendron, with a single species, is found in eastern North America and western 

 China.^ It was represented by several species In the Cretaceous age, when the genus was widely distrib- 

 uted m North America and Europe. It continued to exist during the Tertiary period, with a species,^ 



^ The stipules generally do not fall until the leaf is fully grown, 

 and sometimes remain on vigorous shoots imtil the end oC summer. 



" Mirbel, Ele'mens de Physiologie et de Botanique, t. 20. — Trdeul, 

 Ann. Set. Nat. ser. 3, xx. 296. 



^ This minute point is the extremity of the midrib prolonged 

 without cellular tissue beyond the leaf-blade. (Godron, Observations 

 sur les Bourgeons et sur les Feuilles du Liriodendron Tulipifera, Bull. 

 Soc. Bot. France, viii. 33, t. 1.) 



* The carpels of the outer rows are almost always sterile, and 

 often remain attached to the axis during the winter, giWng to the 

 naked branches the appearance of terminating in brown tulip- 

 shaped flowers. 



' The Tulip-tree was discovered in China in 1875. The speci- 



mens gathered on the mountains near Kiukiangwere first supposed 

 to belong to a distinct species (Lo Marchant Moore, Jour. Boi. 1875, 

 225); later it was collected again in the same district by Maries, 

 and the Chinese plant was considered a variety of the American 

 species, or the American species itself introduced and naturalized 

 in China. (Hemsley, Jour. Linn. Soc. xxiii. 25 ; Garden and Forest, 

 ii. 123.) Dr. A. Henry found the Tulip-tree abundant and grow- 

 ing spontaneously on the mountains north and south of the Yang-tse 

 River in the district of Hupeh, and his specimens received in Eng- 

 land in 1889 lead Mr. W. Botting Hemsley to pronounce the Chi- 

 nese tree identical with the North American species. (Gard. 

 Ckron. 3d ser. vi. 718, December 21, 1889.) 

 Liriodendron Procacdnii, Unger, Gen. et Spec. PI. Foss. 443. 



