TREES OF PARKFAIRFAX: TULIPTREE

            One of our most distinctive deciduous trees is the Tuliptree, sometimes called Yellow Poplar or Tulip Poplar, but not related to true poplars.  It is tall (70-90 feet) with unique notch-tipped four-pointed glossy bright green leaves.  When crushed the leaves emit a spicy smell.  In the fall the leaves turn golden yellow.  In May-June the tree produces tulip-like orange, yellow and green flowers high in its branches often not seen until the petals begin to fall to the earth. Its fruit are slim, dry, winged seeds that cluster into a cone and last on the tree until November. The seeds are eaten by squirrels and songbirds. 

Its height and uniformly-spaced branches make it appear full and dense.  According to Dirr “with age the tree becomes oval-rounded with several large sinuous branches constituting the framework around an unusually long and slender bole.  It is a magnificent and grand tree in its sunset years.  The tree is a frequent choice in some of the great gardens of the world.”

The Tuliptree’s wood is straight-grained, fine, soft and resistant to splitting, and perhaps most importantly easily worked. Both Jefferson at Monticello and Vanderbilt at the Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina used the wood to frame their houses.  Tuliptree wood is also used for g furniture, interiors, shingles, boats, implements, boxes, toys, pulp, and fuel. Native Americans built dugout canoes from its large trunks. 

You can find a Tuliptree growing at the edge of the woodlands along Valley Drive near the mailbox just beyond the intersection of Valley and Gunston Road. 

For more information about the Tuliptree see

Dirr, Michael A. Dirr’s Hardy Trees and Shrubs, Timber Press, 1997

www.plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=LITU