MAGNOLIACE^E 



325 



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



Leaves dark green ami shining on the upper, paler on the lower surface, 5'-6' 

 long and broad, turning clear yellow in the autumn before falling; their petioles 

 slender, angled, 5'-6' long. Flowers l^'-2' deep, on slender peduncles f '-!' long. 

 Fruit 2'-3' long, about \' wide, ripening late in September and in October, the 

 mature carpels l'-l' 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 

 brandies forming a narrow pyramidal, or in old age a broader spreading head, and 

 slender branchlets light yellow-green and often covered with a glaucous bloom dur- 

 ing their first summer, reddish brown, lustrous, and marked by many small pale len- 

 ticels and roughened by the elevated orbicular or semiorbicular leaf-scars marked by 

 numerous small scattered nbro-vasciilar bundle-scars during their first winter, 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 

 sapwood; largely manufactured into lumber used in construction, the interior finish 

 of houses, boatbuilding, and for shingles, brooms, and woodenware. The intensely 

 acrid bitter inner bark, especially of the root, is used domestically as a tonic and stim- 

 ulant, and hydrochlorate of tulipiferine, an alkaloid separated from the bark, pos- 

 sesses the property of stimulating the heart. 



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

 mountain slopes; Rhode Island to southwestern Vermont, and westward to the 

 southern shores of Lake Michigan, southward to northern Florida, southern Alabama 

 and Mississippi, and in southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas; most 

 abundant and of its largest size in the vallevs of the lower Ohio basin, and on the 

 lower slopes of the high mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. 



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

 central Europe. 



