MAGNOLIA FAMILY 
wedge-shaped at base, entire, and the apex cut across at 4 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 turna clear, bright yellow. Peti- 
ole long, slender, angled. 
Flowers.—May. 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. 
Stamens.—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, [ach 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, mapies, 
and beeches have community of interest. They are all active together or all 
alike still. —HENry Warp 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 calied a poplar largely because of 
the fluttering habit of its leaves, in which it resembles trees 
of that genus; the color of 1ts 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 
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