352 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



period, is now represented by two species, one in eastern North America, the other L. 

 chinensis Sarg. in central China. 



Liriodendron, from \ipiov and devSpov, is descriptive of the lily-like flower. 



1. Liriodendron Tulipifera L. Yellow Poplar. Tulip-tree. 



Leaves dark green and shining on the upper, paler on the lower surface, 5'-G' long and 

 broad; turning clear yellow in the autumn before falling; petioles slender, angled, 5'-6' in 

 length. Flowers l^'-2' deep, on slender pedicels f'-l' long; petals green conspicuously 

 marked with orange at base. Fruit %%'-3' long, about \' thick, ripening late in Septem- 

 ber and in October, the mature carpels \'-\\' long and about \' wide. 



A tree, sometimes nearly 200 high, with a straight trunk 8-10 in diameter, destitute 

 of branches for 80-100 from the ground, short, comparatively small branches forming a 



Fig. 318 



narrow pyramidal, or in old age a broader spreading head, and slender branchlets light 

 yellow-green and often covered with a glaucous bloom during their first summer, reddish 

 brown, lustrous, and marked during then* first winter by many small pale lenticels and 

 roughened by the elevated orbicular or semiorbicular leaf-scars marked by numerous small 

 'scattered fibro- vascular bundle-scars, and dark gray during their third year. Winter-buds 

 ^dark red covered by a glaucous bloom, the terminal \' long, much longer than the lateral 

 buds. Bark thin and scaly on young trees, becoming deeply furrowed, brown, and l'-2' 

 thick. Wood light, soft, brittle, not strong, easily worked, light yellow or brown, with thin 

 creamy white sap wood; largely manufactured into lumber used in construction, the interior 

 finish of houses, boatbuilding, and for shingles, brooms, and wooden ware. The intensely 

 acrid bitter inner bark, especially of the roots, is used domestically as a tonic and stimulant, 

 and hydrochlorate of tulipiferine, an alkaloid separated from the bark, possesses the prop- 

 erty of stimulating the heart. 



Distribution. Deep rich rather moist soil on the intervales of streams or on mountain 

 slopes; Worcester County, Massachusetts, to southwestern Vermont (Pow r nal, Bennington 

 County), and westward to southern Ontario, southern Michigan and northeastern Mis- 

 souri, and southward to Orange County (Rock Spring Run), Florida, southern Alabama, 

 Mississippi and Louisiana, southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas; most abun- 

 dant and of its largest size in the valleys of the lower Ohio basin, and on the slopes of 

 the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee up to altitudes of 5000. 



Often cultivated as an ornamental tree in the eastern states, and in western and central 

 Europe. 



