Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol01.djvu/95

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Liriodendron
67

and minute. The pith is solid, but not continuous, being interrupted by woody crosspartitions.(A.H.)

Distribution

In Canada the tulip tree occurs[1] in rich soil in the western peninsula of Ontario, from Harp ikon to Huron Co. It forms a noble tree in the thick forest west of St. Thomas, and has been found in Nova Scotia.[2]

In New England it occurs in the valley of the Hoosac river, Mass., in the Connecticut river valley, and in Rhode Island, where it is frequent.[3]

It extends west to Southern Michigan as far north as Grand river, southward through all the States east of the Mississippi to Alabama, attaining its maximum size in the valleys of the Ohio river and its tributaries, and in the foot-hills and valleys of the Southern Alleghany mountains, in Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina. West of the Mississippi it occurs commonly, though not in the southeastern parts of Missouri and Arkansas. Its southern limit appears to be in Northern Florida, Southern Alabama, and Mississippi.

Sargent says of this tree that it is one of the largest and most beautiful trees of the American forest, only surpassed in the Eastern States by the occidental plane and the deciduous cypress.

It sometimes attains in the deep river bottoms and warm, damp, summer climate of Southern Indiana a height of 160–190 feet, with a straight trunk 8-10 feet in diameter clear of branches for 80–100 feet from the ground. Individuals 100-150 feet tall with trunks 5-6 feet in diameter are still common. The branches, which are small and short in proportion to the trunk, give this tree a pyramidal habit, except in the case of old or very large individuals, on which the head is spreading.

I have seen it growing in the neighbourhood of Boston, where, however, it did not seem to attain as large a size as in the south of England, and where seedlings do not come up freely so far as I saw. Near the gate of the Arnold Arboretum the largest tree, about 70 years old, was 85 feet high by 8 feet 6 in girth.

In Druidhill Park, Baltimore, it becomes a much finer tree, and surpassed in height any other species growing there. The tallest I saw was in a shady dingle, and measured 125 feet by 11 feet, with a straight clean stem. Older trees had rough bark coming off in scales.

In the mountains of North Carolina, at Biltmore, I saw much larger trees, and to give an idea of its development in this region I figure (Plate 24) a tree from a photograph[4] kindly sent me by Mr. W. Ashe of the North Carolina Geological Survey, taken in the winter. This tree, which stood in Yancey Co., North Carolina, was a very characteristic specimen, more than 160 feet high and 6 feet in diameter at 5 feet from the ground. The smaller timber having been cut from around it only a few years previously, the form of the tree is perfectly typical, and shows the charac-

  1. Macoun, Cat. Canadian Plants, pt. i. 28 (1883).
  2. G. Lawson, Proc. N.S. Inst. Science, 86 (1891).
  3. Dame and Brookes, Trees of New England, 104 (1902).
  4. Pinchot and Ashe, Bull. No. 6, North Carolina Geol. Surv. pt. ii. (1898).