WHITEWOOD OR TULIP-TREE WOOD, POPLAR OR COTTONWOOD, 



(Liriodendron.) {Populus.) 



CUCUMBER-TREE WOOD, BASSWOOD. 



{Magnolia.) (Tilia.) 



These trees are not related, but are all noted for woods 

 with soft, fine qualities, such as fit them for carvings, wooden- 

 ware, and paper-pulp. No one of the woods is durable when 

 exposed, and all are used for boxes because they nail without 

 splitting. The names are commercially interchangeable. 



The whitewood or tulip tree {Liriodendron tidipiferd) is a 

 native of America and an acclimated tree in Europe. It is the 

 sole surviving species of its genus. The wood is soft, stiff, 



clean, fine, straight-grained, and 

 obtainable in large-sized pieces. 

 Much whitewood is made into 

 lumber, the wood standing among 

 those of the broad) eaf series as 

 y_Jl:5>^^Xj^^- ' ~_ > white pine does among the coni- 



'""^'^ ~ - fers. Whitewood is particularly 



suitable for carvings. In spite 

 of its name it is largely greenish 

 yellow. It is often divided com- 

 mercially, according to color, into 

 "white poplar" and "yellow poplar." Trunks often attain 

 to a very large size. Matthews mentions a specimen * thirty- 

 three feet in circumference. The species may be known by its 

 large tulip-shaped flower. Liriodendron is from two Greek 

 words meaning lily and tree. 



The poplars, sometimes called cottonwoods because of 

 their seeds covered with a cotton-like down, are represented 

 on both continents. The wood was made into shields by the 



\ 



Whitewood (Liriodendron 

 tuiififera). 



* F. Schuyler Matthews, 



' Familiar Trees " (Appleton, 1901), p. 39. 



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