198 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



form ; being cut off, as it were, at the extremity, or slightly 

 notched and divided also, into two sided lobes. The breadth 

 of the leaves is six or eight inches. The flowers which are 

 shaped like a large tulip, are composed of six thick yellow 

 petals, mottled on the inner surface with red and green. 

 They are borne singly on the terminal shoots, on full- 

 grown trees have a pleasant, slight perfume, and are very 

 showy. The seed-vessel, which ripens in October, is formed 

 of a number of scales surrounding the central axis in the 

 form of a cone. It is remarkable that young trees under 30 

 or 35 feet high, seldom or never perfect their seeds. 



Whoever has once seen the Tulip tree in a situation where 

 the soil was favourable to its free growth, can never forget 

 it. With a clean trunk, straight as a column, for 40 or 50 

 feet, surmounted by a fine ample summit of rich green foliage, 

 it is in our estimation, decidedly the most stately tree in North 

 America. When standing alone, and encouraged in its late- 

 ral growth, it will indeed often produce a lower head, but 

 its tendency is to rise, and it only exhibits itself in all its state- 

 liness and majesty when, supported on such a noble colum- 

 nar trunk, it towers far above the heads of its neighbours of 

 the park or forest. Even when at its loftiest elevation, its 

 large specious blossoms, which from their form, one of our 

 poets has likened to the chalice ; 



Through the verdant maze 



The Tulip tree, 

 Its golden chalice oft triumphantly displays. 



Pickering. 



jut out from amid the tufted canopy in the month of June, and 

 glow in richness and beauty. While the tree is less than a foot 

 in diameter, the stem is extremely smooth, but when older, it 

 becomes deeply furrowed, and is quite picturesque. For the 



