MAGNOLIACE^. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



19 



LIRIODENDRON TULIPIFERA. 



Yellow Poplar. Tulip Tree. 



LinnaBus, S;pec. 1. 535. — Da Eoi, Harhk. Baum. i. 374. — 

 'MzxsW'aW., Arhust. Am- 78. — Wangenheim, Nordam. IIolz. 

 32, t. 13, f. 32. — Walter, Ft Car. 158. — Giertner, Fruct. 

 ii. 475, t. 178. — Bot. Mag. t. 275. — Abbot, Insects of 

 Georgia, ii. t. 102. — Schkuhr, Handh. ii. 93, t. 147. — 

 Willdenow, Spec. ii. 1254. — Miehaux, Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 

 326. — Nouveau DuhaTnel, iii. 62, t. 18. — Desfontaines, 

 Hist. Arh. ii. 15. — Poiret, Lo,m. Diet. viii. 137; III. iii. 

 36, t. 491. — Jaume St. Hilaire, PI. France, iii. t. 377. — ■ 

 Miehaux f . Hist. Arh. Am. iii. 202, t. 5. — Pursh, Fl. 

 Am. Sept. ii. 382. — - Nuttall, Gen. ii. 18.— Bai-ton, Med. 

 Bot. i. 91, t. 8. — De Candolle, Sgst. i. 461; Frodr.ii. 

 82. — Bigelow, Med. Bot. ii. 107, t. 31. — liayne, Dendr. 

 Fl. 115. — Elliott, Sk. ii. 40. — Torrey, Fl. N. Y. 1. 28. — 

 Rafinesque, Med. Bot. ii. 239. — Guimpel, Otto & Hayne, 



Ahbild. Holz. 34, t. 29. — Audubon, Birds, t. 12. — Don, 

 Gen. Syst. i. 86. — Spach, Hist. Veg. vii. 488. — Loudon, 

 Arb. Brit. i. 284, t.— Torrey & Gray, Fl. X. Am. i. 

 44. — Dietrich, Sgn. iii. 309. — GrilHtb, 3Ied. Bot. 98, 

 f. 58. — Emerson, Trees Mass. ed. 2, ii. 605, t. — Dar- 

 lington, Fl. Cestr. ed. 3, 9. — Agardh, Theor. et Sgst. 

 PL t. 11, f. 2, 3. — Chapman, Fl. 14. — Curtis, Geolog. 

 Siirv. N. Car. 1860, iii. 77. — Lemaire, HI. Hort. 15, 

 t. 571.— Baillon, Hist. PI. i. 143, f. 175-178. —Koch, 

 Bendr. i. 380. — Eichler, Verhandl. Bot. Ver. J, rand. 

 xxii. 82, f. 1-3. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 'XOth 

 Census U. S. ix. 22. — Lloyd, Drugs and Med. N. Am. 

 ii. 3, t. 26, f. — "Watson & Coulter, Gray's Man. ed. 6, 

 50. 

 Liriodendron procertim, Salisbury, Prodr. 379. 



The Liriodendron is one of the largest and most beautiful trees of the American forest. The Occi- 

 dental Plane and the Southern Cypress are the only American deciduous trees which grow to a larger size. 

 ■It sometimes attains^ under favorable conditions, a height of one hundred and sixty to one hundred and 

 ninety feet, "\vith a straight trunk eight or ten feet in diameter, destitute of branches for eighty or a hun- 

 dred feet from the ground.^ Individuals a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet tall, with trunks five or 

 six feet in diameter, are still common. The branches, which are short and small in proportion to the 

 size of the trunk, give to this tree a pyramidal habit, except in the case of old or very large individuals 

 on -which the head is spreading. The winter-buds are dark red, covered with a glaucous bloom. The 

 smooth lustrous bark of the young branches is red or red-brown during their first and second seasons, 

 turning dark gray during the third. The leaves, supported on slender angled petioles five or six inches 

 long, are dark green and shining on the upper, and paler on the lower surface. They are five or six 

 inches long by as many broad, and quiver with the slightest movement of the air.^ The flowers, which 

 are borne on stout peduncles an mch and a half to two inches long, appear In May. The fruit ripens 



late in September and in October. 



Liriodendron Tulipifera is found from Rhode Island^ to southwestern Vermont and west to the 

 southern shores of Lake Michigan, and extends south to northern Florida, southern Alabama and 

 Mississippi. It occurs west of the Mississippi Kiver only in southeastern Missouri and the adjacent parts 

 of Arkansas. It prefers deep rich and rather moist soil on the intervales of streams or on mountam 

 slopes, and is most abundant and reaches its greatest development m the vaHeys of the rivers flomng 

 into the Ohio, and on the lower slopes of the high mountains of North CaroHna and Tennessee. The 

 Tulip-tree, although widely distributed, is nowhere common enough to become the characteristic feature 

 of the forest, and even in regions where the soU and climatic conditions are most favorable to it, more 

 than four or five large specimens are seldom found growing on a single acre of ground. 



Wilson, who discovered his body a few days later. This tree 

 was visited by Mr. W. M. Cauby in 18GG, and was then in perfect 



health. 



2 It was perhaps this hahlt, recalling the Aspen and other species 



of Poplar, which led the early settlers in America to apply the 

 name of " Poplar " to this tree. 



8 L. W. Kussell, Garden and Forest, ii. 34. 



1 Ridgway, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1882, 59. 



The great Tulip-tree on the steep slopes of Mount Mitchell in 

 North Carolina, the highest point of land in North America east of 

 the Rocky Mountains, has a trunk thirty-three feet round at three 

 feet from the ground. It stands at the head of the cove between 

 the pool in which Professor Elisha Mitchell lost his life June 

 27, 1857, and the hut of the well-known mountameer, "Tom" 



