232 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
states, where indeed the growth of forest trees is astonish- 
ingly vigorous, this tree far exceeds that altitude. The elder 
Michaux mentions several which he saw in Kentucky, that 
were fifteen and sixteen feet in girth ; and his son confirms 
the measurement of one, three miles and a half from Louis- 
ville, which at five feet from the ground, was found to be 
twenty-two feet and six inches in circumference, with a cor- 
responding elevation of 130 feet. 
The foliage is rich and glossy, and has a very peculiar 
form ; being cut off, as it were, at the extremity, and slightly 
notched and divided, into two sided lobes. The breadth 
of the leaves is six or eight inches. The flowers, which are 
shaped like a large tulip, are composed of six thick yellow 
petals, mottled on the inner surface with red and green. 
They are borne singly on the terminal shoots, have a plea- 
sant, slight perfume, and are very showy. The seed-vessel, 
which ripens in October, is formed of a number of scales 
surrounding the central axis in the form of a cone. It is 
remarkable that young trees under 30 or 35 feet high, 
seldom or never perfect their seeds. 
Whoever has once seen the Tulip tree in a situation where 
the soil was favourable to its free growth, can never forget 
it. With a clean trunk, straight as a column, for 40 or 50 
feet, surmounted by a fine, ample summit of rich green foliage, 
it is, in our estimation, decidedly the most stately tree in 
North America. When standing alone, and encouraged in 
its lateral growth, it will indeed often produce a lower head, 
but its tendency is to rise, and it only exhibits itself in all 
its stateliness and majesty when, supported on such a noble 
columnar trunk, it towers far above the heads of its neigh- 
bours of the park or forest. Even when at its loftiest eleva- 
