THE MAGNOLIA AND TULIP-TKEE 173 



The flowers do not appear until after the leaves are out in the 

 spring, and as the trees are tall they are not as familiar as they 

 deserve to be. Some people never see them for they are hard to 

 come at, are short stalked, and rather perishable even when it is 

 possible to pick them. The tulip-tree leaves are dark green and 

 unique in form and very handsome. Normally they are some- 

 what fiddle-shaped, like 7 of figure 37 or 10 of figure 38, notched 

 at the tip with two or three sinuous pointed lobes on each side. 

 They are long stalked and at the base of the stalk there are a pair 

 of large hghter green oval leaflets of the sort that botanists call 

 stipules. These serve as bud scales and protect the tiny leaflets 

 during the winter. The peculiar arrangement of the leaves in 

 these laterally compressed buds, where they are recurved or bent 

 down so that their forked tip lies at the base of the future stalk, 

 is the reason why they have the notched tip so unHke the majority 

 of leaves. 



The tulip-trees are undoubtedly derived from distant ancestors 

 with pointed lanceolate leaves Hke those of the magnolias, and we 

 as yet have no clue to the manner in which they came to adopt this 

 peculiar arrangement of being tucked away in the buds flexed 

 and folded one within the other and facing first one side and then 

 the other, for the leaves are alternate in their arrangement. Most 

 tree buds, either of leaf or flower, have a number of bud scales for 

 their protection and these are generally resinous (the source of 

 ^ poo G wftx ) or furry, and often of large size as in the walnuts and 

 horse-chestnuts. To a certain extent in the magnolias and es- 

 pecially in the tulip-tree this function of protection is assumed 

 by the basal leaflets or stipules. Theoretically we believe that 

 all bud scales are modified leaves or leaf segments, but in nearly 

 all trees the bud scales have been so modified or specialized that 

 their history can not be readily deciphered, as it can in this family, 



A good many years ago I spent much time collecting the leaves 

 of the tulip-tree for purposes of comparison with the fossil forms, 

 and the subject is such an interesting one that I have devoted a 

 plate to some of the curious shaped leaves of our recent species 

 that illustrate the origin of the stipules and that show how the 



