wood and yellow poplar from the varying colors of the wood, canoe-wood from the use made of it by the Indians, and saddle-tree from the arrangement of the leaves in the bud. This magnificent tree belongs to the same family as the Magnolia, and among American deciduous-leaved trees is surpassed in size only by the plane or buttonwood, to which it is superior in symmetry and in the attractiveness of its foliage and flowers. Its height is usually from 60 to 90 feet, but in favorable localities it may grow 140 to 180 feet tall, with a diameter of 4 to 12 feet. Michaux measured a tree near Louisville, Ky., which at five feet from the ground was 22 1/2 feet in circumference and exceeded 120 feet in height. The tulip tree is one of the handsomest of American ornamental trees, growing in a conical form, offering an extensive shade, and putting forth in May or June an immense number of large greenish-yellow flowers. The peculiar-shaped leaves easily distinguish it from all other forest trees. They are four to six inches long, four-lobed, with the end abruptly truncated, or broadly notched, and have a smooth bright green surface. The bark, which is broken into large flat ridges, has a very bitter taste and was used by the Indians as a remedy for intermittent fevers. (Fig. 115.)

The slightly fragrant bell-shaped flowers are two inches long, solitary, and terminal. The calyx is composed of three oval concave sepals of a pale greenish color, which finally become reflexed. There are six large yellowish-green petals, each of which is marked at the base with an irregular crescent-shaped, bright orange-yellow spot. The stamens are numerous with short filaments. In the center there is a cone-like mass of pistils (carpels). The seeds are winged and form a dry cone 3 inches long, which falls apart in autumn. The flowers are very frequently visited by bees and also by humming-birds.

The tulip tree is found in rich woods from Massachusetts and Michigan southward to Florida and Mississippi and westward to Arkansas and Louisiana. It succeeds best in a fertile loamy soil, such as occurs in river-bottoms and on the borders of swamps. As a source of honey it is important in southern Virginia, West Virginia. Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and northern Georgia. In southern Virginia on the Piedmont Plateau tulip tree and sourwood are the only plants which yield a large surplus. In the rugged wooded region of southwest Virginia tulip tree, sourwood, black locust, and basswood furnish a large amount of honey. Along the Ohio River in West Virginia tulip tree is likewise abundant. On a tract of land 625 acres in extent near the Ohio River between the Great Kanawha and Big Sandy Rivers there were counted 16,987 trees, of which 858 were tulip trees. This characteristic tree was at one time very common in Kentucky; and, although merchantable trees have been largely cut for lumber, it still furnishes a part of the surplus in the less thickly settled sections of the state. Young trees are rapidly springing up and beginning to bloom. On the ridges and tablelands of the eastern and central regions of Tennessee tulip tree and sourwood are the most important sources of honey. The former blooms about the first of May and yields heavily for about two weeks.

In Maryland above the “fall line” on the Piedmont Plateau tulip tree is sufficiently abundant to yield a honey crop regularly. On the Coastal Plain it never furnishes a surplus. Formerly in central Maryland it was one of the main surplus-honey plants, and it is still important in Montgomery County, where it is associated with chestnut, walnut, and maple. But it has been so largely cut for pulp wood that there has been a great decrease in the quantity of honey obtained. No other honey plant in North Carolina has so wide a distribution as tulip tree. It is found in all parts of the state except in the eastern lowlands. It blooms from May 10 to 30, the date varying somewhat in different localities. Tulip tree is likewise widely distributed in South Carolina, but is most common in the Piedmont region. It extends over northern Georgia, where it is usually a reliable source of honey, and it is also found in the mountainous section of northeastern Alabama.

The nectar may be seen in both large and small drops on the orange-yellow portions of the petals, on the inner side, which thus serve as both nectaries and nectar guides. The time of blooming varies with the conditions of the weather from the last of April to the first of June. When the blossoms are late in opening and the