Part 27

Thoreau in his walks through the winter woods about Concord in February says: “When I break off a twig of green-barked sassafras, as I am going through the woods now, and smell it, I am startled to find it as fragrant as in summer. It is an importation of all the spices of Oriental summers into our New England winter, very foreign to the snow and the oak leaves.” This Oriental spiciness may be partly accounted for by the fact that our sassafras is related to the camphor and cinnamon trees of the tropics.

The wood is soft and brittle, but it has durability when placed in contact with the soil, which makes it useful for posts and rails. It is also used for ox yokes and cooperage. Oil of sassafras, which is distilled from the bark of the roots, is used for perfuming soap. This tree is confined to eastern North America, and deserves far more attention than has been given it by landscape gardeners,—it is a beautiful tree as well as an individual one.

Sassafras was a popular name used by the French in Florida, and it has become both its generic and specific name.

CHAPTER XII

THE MAGNOLIA AND TULIP TREE, THE CATALPA, THE AILANTHUS, AND THE ARALIA

Chapter XII

THE MAGNOLIA AND TULIP TREE, THE CATALPA, THE AILANTHUS, AND THE ARALIA

Families Magnoliaceæ, Bignoniaceæ, Simaroubaceæ, and Araliaceæ

The magnolia family is made up of trees and shrubs belonging mainly to the tropics, but it has two genera in the Northeastern States,—the magnolia and the tulip tree. They are particularly interesting in winter on account of the buds which are covered with stipules forming bud-scales and which protect the undeveloped leaves until they open in the spring.

There are six species of magnolia in the United States, but only one is found growing wild in New England. The tulip tree is the only species in the genus Liriodendron and it is found only in eastern North America and western China.

Magnolia glauca]

A shrub or slender tree, 4 to 30 feet high, with light brown bark. The recent shoots are a bright green, and like the buds they have a tendency towards downiness. Alternate leaf-scars.

This magnolia is found growing more or less commonly in swamps from New Jersey to Florida, but it is rare in the north. Over a hundred years ago it was discovered growing wild in Essex County, Massachusetts, by a minister of Ipswich, the Rev. Manasseh Cutler, and it is still found in the swamps near Gloucester. It is a low shrub in the north, but in the south it grows to be a slender tree. The wood which is soft and light is occasionally used in the south for making broom handles. The roots of the swamp magnolia are very fleshy, and they used to be eaten by beavers. The early settlers in Pennsylvania called it the “beaver tree” and baited their traps to catch beavers with pieces of the roots.

The name was given to the genus in honor of Pierre Magnol, a professor of botany at Montpellier in the seventeenth century, the specific name, glauca (glaucous) refers to the bloom on the under side of the leaves.

The umbrella tree (Magnolia tripetala) is found much more commonly in parks and gardens than our native swamp magnolia, and it seems a better representative of the genus for illustration. In the south it grows to be thirty or forty feet high. The bark is light gray in color and covered with small, blister-like excrescences. The branches are stout, and green in color turning to brown. The buds are large and smooth and covered with a purplish, glaucous bloom, and the leaf-scars are clearly defined. This magnolia grows in deep, rich moist soil, and is nowhere common. It is more frequently cultivated than any of the other species.

The name, tripetala, was given to it by Linnæus, and refers to the three conspicuous sepals of the flowers. The English name alludes to the spreading umbrella-like arrangement of the leaves.

The cucumber tree (Magnolia acuminata), a large tree 50 to 90 feet high, grows wild in western New York and southward, and is often cultivated. Its leaf buds are silky. The specific name refers to the pointed apex of the leaves.

Liriodendron tulipifera]

A very large tree, 80 to 150 feet high, The bark is dark and smooth, with small shallow furrows. The twigs are light purplish brown, with a grayish bloom, and the leaf-scars are oval and alternate in arrangement. The terminal bud is covered by two stipules. There are stipule-scars on the stems. The fruit is a pointed, open, dry cone, often remaining on the trees through the winter.

The tulip tree is one of the largest and tallest trees in our American forests. It has long been admired for its beauty in the summer, and a study of its winter buds and stems discloses the fact that it is equally interesting and beautiful when its foliage has gone. The buds are peculiar in structure. Each leaf within the bud is protected by a pair of stipules, and in the spring, when the buds open, a leaf slowly uncurls from its two folded stipule coverings and another bud is seen beneath, wrapped in stipules. This bud unfolds and in its turn discloses another. The process is as fascinating to watch as the opening of Indian boxes one within another. This characteristic of the tulip tree in protecting its young leaves makes one associate a very human, maternal instinct with the tree; it seems of all others the most careful in protecting its young growth. Sir John Lubbock, in his work on “Buds and Stipules,” explains that the peculiar squared end of the tulip tree’s leaf is caused by the singular way it is folded in the bud.

Liriodendron tulipifera

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“I long wondered,” he says, “what could be the purpose or the advantage to the tree of this remarkable shape. One idea which occurred to me was that the difference of form might enable insects to perceive the tree at some distance, just as the colors of flowers are an advantage in rendering them more conspicuous. I then looked closely to see whether the peculiar forms could in any way be explained by the position of the leaves on the tree. I believe, however, that the cause is of a different nature, and has reference to the peculiar character of the bud. Each young leaf is, as in the family Magnoliaceæ generally, originally enclosed in and sheltered by the stipules of its predecessor. These are in Liriodendron oval or in form resembling a shallow dish or spoon, so that when placed face to face they form a hollow almond-shaped box. Inside this lies the next younger pair of stipules; and the rest of the space is occupied by the young leaf, which is conduplicate or folded on itself down the middle, like a sheet of note paper, and also turned back towards the base of the bud. This unusual position is probably due to the early development of the petiole. It seems obvious that the peculiar form of the leaf is due to the form and arrangement of the bud.”

The wood, which is known as whitewood and yellow poplar, is very valuable. It is light and easily worked, and is much used for furniture and in the interior finish of houses. The bark of the wood and branches is pungent, bitter, and aromatic, and acts on the system as a tonic. According to Bigelow’s “Medical Botany” it has been used in the treatment of chronic rheumatism and in intermittent fever.

The generic name comes from two Greek words meaning tulip tree, and alludes to the tulip-like flowers; the specific name also refers to the flowers, and means tulip bearing.

The tulip tree is found growing wild in Rhode Island and Vermont, south to Florida, and westward. It is planted commonly throughout New England. This tree was found growing in Western China in 1875, and in 1889 specimens were sent to England and it was found to be identical with the American species.

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Catalpa speciosa]