ANGIOSPERM TREES 



297 



United States, being found from southern New England west- 

 ward and southward to lUinois, Arkansas, Louisiana, and the 

 gulf states, including northern Florida, and reaching its maxi- 

 mum size and abundance in the lower Ohio river basin and on 

 mountain slopes in Tennessee and North Carolina. It is a fairly 

 rapid-growing tree and probably lives to be three hundred years 

 old. On account of the very showy flowers, tulip tree is widely 

 used as an ornamental species in the East, but because of very 

 tender roots, is quite difficult to transplant successfully. The 

 wood is light in weight, soft, weak and straight grained. The thin 

 layer of sapwood is nearly white, while the heartwood is pale 

 greenish yellow or brown. 



The Sycamores 



The SYCAMORES (Platanus) have alternate, simple leaves, bright 

 green above and paler beneath, with three to five large toothed 



Fig. 214.- 



-Sycamores have leaves with three to five broad lobes, and spherical 

 fruits. 



lobes. The twigs are conspicuously zigzag, lacking a terminal 

 bud, and with the conical lateral buds covered by a single cap- 

 like scale. The individual, minute, flowers are borne in spherical 

 heads, giving rise to the spherical fruit made up of numerous 

 single seeds, each surrounded at the base by a ring of hairs which 

 aids in their dissemination by the wind (fig. 214). The bark on 



