GREAT AMERICANS: TULIP, THE TREE KIND
Eco-gardening is at its best in The Monday Garden
January 18, 2004, Issue 95
GREAT AMERICANS: TULIP, THE TREE KIND
The extreme cold has kept everyone inside, and now, once more, the sound of Sunday-morning snowplows. When you can get out, though, winter is a great time for tree viewing.
Here's a Liriodendron tulipifera, otherwise known as our towering native tulip tree. It's kin to the magnolias, but is often called a white or yellow poplar because its leaves shimmer in the breeze like poplars and aspens.
The tulip is TALL, second in North American only to the Giant Sequoia. Tulips often reach 150 feet with diameters up to 8 feet; they can live 300 years. (Compare the sequoia: 300', 30' diameter, and 3,000 years).
What distinguishes the tulip is good posture.