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For variety of leaf-shapes it is doubtful if many known 

 trees equal the red mulberry. When young the leaves are 

 often deeply lobed, sometimes one-sidedly so, and sometimes 

 they are without lobes. The mature leaf-blade is usually 

 oval in outline, with a square or heart-shaped base and an 

 acute-tipped apex. The margins are prominently toothed. 

 The catkin-clustered flowers come out with the leaves, the 

 fertile clusters followed in early summer by the juicy fruits. 

 These are really a conglomeration of many fruit-units all 

 going to form what is popularly termed the fruit. 



The wood has some commercial value, and the tree de- 

 serves wide planting for its decorative value. It is found 

 from central New York to the Gulf of Mexico and westward. 

 In the Hudson Valley it is local and rare in the southerly 

 portion, and probably wanting northward. 



Sweet Bay Magnolia virginiana 



In the southern states this often becomes a tree exceeding 

 50 feet in height, but in the Hudson Valley, it is not known 

 to be more than a shrub or a shrub-like tree. On Staten 

 Island and in adjacent New Jersey it grows in swamps. 



The plant may be identified by its leathery lance-shaped or 

 oval leaf-blades which are conspicuously white, silky-hairy, 

 on the under side. Beautiful white, fragrant flowers appear 

 in June and the conspicuous red fruits later in the summer. 



Tulip Tree Liriodendron Tulipifera 



One of the most attractive trees for decorative planting in 

 the eastern states is the tulip tree. Its giant columnar trunk 

 is often free of branches for 50 or 60 feet but it may have 

 branches lower than this in some specimens. The tree fre- 

 quently exceeds 150 feet in height and is usually broadly 

 oblong in outline. 



The characteristic leaves give a striking distinctiveness to 

 the tree. They are broadly heart-shaped at the base, and 

 conspicuously notched at the apex; and the lobes are at first 

 shallowly and subsequently deeply divided. The blade is 



