THE FOREST 19 
with an axe, he selects a tree loaded with ripe nuts 
and chops it down. 
The most beautiful as well as the most valuable of 
the hardwood trees here is the noble tulip-tree, pop- 
lar the people call it, whose grand, clean gray column 
rises out of the forest, the crown of bright green 
leaves overtopping all but the tallest of the pines. 
Liriodendron, the pretty botanical name of the tulip- 
tree, means a tree bearing lilies. And looking far up 
to the crown of this forest giant as its leaves unfold 
in early spring, one discovers that it indeed bears 
lilies, — upright, green and orange lilies, one on the 
end of each twig. In the autumn when the great trees 
stand leafless, each twig holds aloft a golden urn, the 
seed-pod, that remains in place, a unique and charm- 
ing decoration, until the following spring. There is 
something of romance attaching to these trees that 
stand so lordly and alone in our forests. They belong 
to a genus of which there are only two species in all 
the world, one in the eastern United States, the other 
in Asia. We have one tulip-tree, China has the 
other. 
Of course hickories, maples, elms, beeches, birches, 
and many other trees abound, although we lack the 
beautiful "American elm" that so adorns the old 
New England villages and lends romance to North- 
ern valleys. And the spectral white birch is not with 
us. But the sugar-maple, — ' ' sugar- tree ' ' the native 
here calls it, — abundant in some regions, sweetens 
the corn-pone of the mountaineer as agreeably as in 
the cold North it embellishes the buckwheat cakes 
