The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree 



sinuses, apex truncate or concave, base truncate or heart shaped; 

 margin entire, dark green, leathery, smooth, lustrous above, 

 paler beneath; autumn colour, yellow. Flowers tulip-like; 

 \h to 2^ inches across, sepals 3, greenish, recurved; petals 6, 

 yellow, with orange splash near middle; stamens numerous with 

 large yellow anthers; pistils numerous, imbricated around central 

 receptacle. Fruit in September, seeds in dry, winged samaras 

 that fall early from the persistent central spike. Few seeds 

 fertile. Preferred habitat deep, rich soil. Distribution, Vermont 

 to Florida; west to Illinois, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama; 

 maximum size and greatest abundance in the lower Ohio Valley 

 and on mountain slopes of North Carolina and Tennessee. Uses: 

 A valuable shade and ornam.ental tree. Lumber used in boat- 

 building, construction and interior finish of houses, for shingles 

 brooms, small woodenwares, and wood pulp. Postal cards are 

 made of "poplar" pulp. Bark yields an important tonic drug. 



A grove of young tulip trees is most beautiful, I do believe, 

 in the dead of winter. It is not hard to find the old seed tree, 

 whose family of varying ages and sizes stand in close ranks all 

 about. A young tulip is singularly straight and symmetrical, 

 compared with the young of chestnut, dogwood and oak. It 

 takes on very early in life the tree habit of later years. The 

 shaft is tall and grey and smooth, crowned with an oval head of 

 ascending branches, clean and handsome throughout. 



The winter twigs, with their oblong terminal buds, are worth 

 looking at. The leaf scars are prominent, and a narrow ridge 

 encircles the twig at each scar. Spring tells the meaning of these 

 lines, when the leafy shoots unfold. Cut across the terminal bud, 

 and its contents exhibit all parts of a flower — or, if the tree be too 

 young to bloom, the little leaves are revealed, packed away to 

 wait for spring. 



Two green leaves with palms fastened together form a flat 

 bag that encloses the new shoot after the bud scales fall in spring. 

 Hold it to the light and you see a curved petiole and leaf. The 

 bag opens along its edge seam, and the petiole straightens up, 

 lifting the leaf, which has its halves folded on the midrib. At 

 the base of the petiole stands a smaller flat green bag. The leaf 

 grows and takes on its mature, dark-green colour, while the basal 

 palms of its protecting stipules shrivel and fall away. Their 

 work is done. The place of their attachment is the ring scar. 



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