MAGNOLIA FAMILY 



wedge-shaped at base, entire, and the apex cut across at a shallow 

 angle, making the upper part of the leaf look square ; midrib and 

 primary veins prominent. They come out of the bud recurved by 

 the bending down of the petiole near the middle bringing the apex 

 of the folded leaf to the base of the bud, light green, when full grown 

 are bright green, smooth and shining above, paler green beneath, 

 with downy veins. In autumn they turn a clear, bright yellow. Peti- 

 ole long, slender, angled. 



Flowers.— M^y. Perfect, solitary, terminal, greenish yellow, 

 borne on stout peduncles, an inch and a half to two inches long, cup- 

 shaped, erect, conspicuous. The bud is enclosed in a sheath of two 

 triangular bracts which fall as the blossom opens. 



Calyx. — Sepals three, imbricate in bud, reflexed or spreading, 

 somewhat veined, early deciduous. 



Corolla. — Cup-shaped, petals six, two inches long, in two rows, 

 imbricate, hypogynous, greenish yellow, marked toward the base 

 with yellow. Somewhat fleshy in texture. 



Stamejis. — Indefinite, imbricate in many ranks on the base of the 

 receptacle ; filaments thread-like, short ; anthers extrorse, long, two- 

 celled, adnate ; cells opening longitudinally. 



Pistils. — Indefinite, imbricate on the long slender receptacle. 

 Ovary one-ceiled ; style acuminate, flattened ; stigma short, one- 

 sided, recurved ; ovules two. 



Fruit. — Narrow light brown cone, formed by many samara-like 

 carpels which fall, leaving the axis persistent all winter. September, 

 October. 



Different species of trees move their leaves very differently. On the tulip- 

 tree, the aspen and on all native poplars, the leaves are apparently Anglo-Saxon 

 or Germanic, having an intense individualism. Each one moves to suit himself 

 Under the same wind one is trilling up and down, another is whirling, another 

 slowly vibrating right and left, still others are quieting themselves to sleep. 

 Sometimes other trees have single frisky leaves, but usually the oaks, maples, 

 and beeches have community of interest. They are all active together or all 

 alike still. — Henry Ward Beecher. 



The Tulip-tree has impressed itself upon popular attention 

 in many ways, and consequently has many common names. 

 In the western states it is called a poplar largely because of 

 the fluttering habit of its leaves, in which it resembles trees 

 of that genus ; the color of its wood gives it the name White- 

 wood ; the Indians so habitually made their dugout canoes 

 of its trunk that the early settlers of the west called it Canoe- 

 wood ; and the resemblance of its flowers to tulips named it 

 the Tulip-tree. 



The Tulip-tree in the forest reaches a size that may be 



r6 



