The tulip reaches its best development in the Southern Appalachians 

 where it reaches a height of 120 feet with a tall, straight unbranched trunk. 

 It has a pyramidal habit, something like that of a conifer, and an open ap 

 pearance clue to its comparatively few branches. The bark is dark, mottled 

 with dark spots and fissured with fine lines. 



The tulip is linked with the history of the Southern States. In 1779, 

 Indians assembled near Chattanooga for an attack on the Carolina frontier. 

 Isaac Shelby, a pioneer leader, had canoes hewed out of trunks of the tulip, 

 and took 750 men down the Holston River to attack them. A few years 

 later a force of South Carolina revolutionists defeated one thousand tories 

 led by Major Ferguson. Because of the crimes committed by the captured 

 royalists, ten were condemned by court martial and hanged to a tulip on Kings 

 Mountain. 



On the campus of St. Johns College, Annapolis, stands the famous Liberty 

 Tulip under which the early colonists discussed their rights. In 1825, General 

 Lafayette, a champion of their struggle for liberty, was entertained under 

 this tree. Although its trunk is a mere shell, yet it flourishes and bears thou 

 sands of blossoms every year. 



The lumberman s term for the tulip is yellow poplar. It is probable that 

 this name was given it because its leaves, like those of poplars, flutter in the 

 breeze, and because the color of the heartwood is somewhat yellow. The wood 

 is highly prized and has many uses such as for veneer, furniture, tobacco hogs 

 heads and candy boxes. 



As a shade tree, the tulip retains its beauty and symmetry from youth 

 to old age, and has added attractiveness because of its striking leaves and 

 flowers. Like other members of the magnolia family, to which it belongs, 

 the tulip has large showy flowers. They are tulip-shaped and yellowish- 

 green in color with darker yellow and deep orange on the tip of the petals. 

 Stout stems bear them erect above the pale green foliage of the tree. 



The leaves of the tulip, which are deciduous, are unique in shape. They are 

 angular with four points, and have peculiar chopped off ends, which gives 

 them a fiddle-shaped appearance. The fluttering of the leaves in the wind 

 is due to the triangular leaf stems which vibrate as do the flat ones of the 

 poplar. The fruit is a cone, several inches long, composed of thin, narrow 



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