BLEMISHES IN TULIP TREE. 77 



THE MAGNOLIA FAMILY (MAGNOLIACE^E) . 



Small, intensely black stains, the effects of which are confined to 

 the wood immediately adjoining the original injury, result from sap- 

 sucker work in bull bay (Longbridge, La.), the only defective mag- 

 nolia wood examined ; and long black stains following the grain are 

 produced in the tulip tree, one of the most useful of our native trees. 

 These blemishes unfit the lumber for its most profitable uses. 



Tulip tree, yellow poplar, or whitewood (Liriodendron tuli- 

 fifera). — Tulip trees are very commonly worked on by sapsuckers 

 and frequently are covered with girdles and single punctures from 

 top to bottom. In the healing of 

 sapsucker wounds, inward projec- 

 tions arc usually formed on the in- 

 ner side of the bark, and when close 

 together they combine into a low 

 irregular ridge. These elevations 

 cause depressions in the succeeding 

 annual rings and a curly condition 

 of the grain which in tangential 

 section appears as bird's-eye (PI. 

 XII). This is often abundant in 

 yellow poplar and enhances the 

 beauty of the wood. Bird's-eye is, 

 however, accompanied by holes 

 and stains resulting from the origi- 

 nal wounds, and while some pieces 

 showing bird's-eye and not the 

 defects can be secured from every 

 tree showing sapsucker work, prob- 

 ably the proportion of such boards 

 or veneer from any tree is not \ 

 large. To have the greater part of 



. . -. L Fig. 27.— Effects of sapsucker work on wood of 



tlie WOOU Ornamented and at the shin oak {Quercus undulata). Checks, stain, 



same time free from sapsucker and gDarly grain - 

 defects would require that the tree be liberally punctured in one or a 

 few successive years and left untouched thereafter. But this is not 

 the way sapsuckers usually work. Favorite trees are moderately 

 pecked year after year for a long time; hence stains are produced 

 throughout the wood. If a tree is only sparingly pecked for one or a 

 few years, the ornamental effects will be inconsiderable, and if vigor- 

 ously attacked during a similar period it is likely to die. On the 

 whole, therefore, probably not many tulip trees can be found in 

 which the wood shows many of the favorable results of sapsucker 



