BLEMISHES IN TULIP TREE. 
THE MAGNOLIA FAMILY (MAGXOLIACE.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 tirfi- 
pifera). — 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 are 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 (PL 
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 
the wood ornamented and at the 
same time free from sapsucker 
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 
Fig. 27.— Effects of sapsucker work on wood of 
shin oak (Quercus undulata). Checks, stain, 
and gnarly grain. 
