American Forest Trees Part 39

YELLOW POPLAR

[Ill.u.s.tration: YELLOW POPLAR]

YELLOW POPLAR

(_Liriodendron Tulipifera_)

In diameter of trunk the yellow poplar is, next to sycamore, the largest hardwood tree of the United States, and if both height and trunk diameter are considered, it surpa.s.ses the sycamore in size. It belongs to a very old group of hardwoods which have come down from remote geological ages, and the species is now found only in the United States and China. Mature trees are from three to eight feet in diameter and from 90 to 180 in height.

It has many names in different parts of its range, but it is never mistaken for any other tree. The peculiar notched leaf is a sure means of identification. The resemblance of the flower to the tulip has given it the name tulip tree in some localities, and botanists prefer that name. It is so called in Vermont, Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, District of Columbia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Ontario. Wood users in New England and in some of the other northern states prefer the name whitewood and it is so known, in part at least, in New England, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, South Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. Yellow poplar is the name preferred by lumbermen in nearly all regions where the tree is found in commercial quant.i.ties, notably in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee. The name is often shortened to poplar, which is used in Rhode Island, Delaware, North and South Carolina, Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana. The name tulip poplar is less frequently heard, and blue poplar and hickory poplar are terms used in West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina, but generally under the impression that they refer to a different form or species. In Rhode Island it is called popple, in New York cuc.u.mber tree, and canoe wood in Tennessee and in the upper Ohio valley.

The botanical range of yellow poplar is wider than its commercial range; that is, a few trees are found in regions surrounding the borders of the district where the tree is profitably lumbered. The boundaries of its range run from southwestern Vermont, westward to Lake Michigan near Grand Haven, southward to northern Florida, and west of the Mississippi river in Missouri and Arkansas. The productive yellow poplar timber belt has never been that large but has clung pretty closely to the southern Appalachian mountain ranges and to certain districts lying both east and west of them. The best original stands were in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, western North Carolina, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and in some parts of Ohio and Indiana. However, considerable quant.i.ties of good yellow poplar have been cut in other regions.

The physical properties of the wood of yellow poplar fit it for many purposes but not for all. It is not very strong and is tolerably brittle. It is light in weight, medium soft, and is easily worked. The annual rings of growth are not prominent compared with some of the oaks, yet select logs show nicely in quarter-sawing. The medullary rays are numerous, but small and not prominent, for which reason bright streaks and flecks are not characteristic of the wood. Yellow poplar is fairly stiff and elastic, but is not often selected on account of those qualities. In color it is light yellow or brown. The color gives name to the tree. The sapwood is whiter, and it is the abnormally thick sapwood of some trees which causes them to be called white poplar. The wood has little figure, and it is seldom employed for fine work without stain or paint of some kind. It is not usually cla.s.sed as long lasting when exposed to the weather, yet cases are known where weather boarding of houses, and bridge and mill timbers of yellow poplar have outlasted the generation of builders.

The quant.i.ty of yellow poplar in the country is but a remnant of the former enormous supply that covered the rich valleys and fertile coves in a region exceeding 200,000 square miles. It occupied the best land, and much was destroyed by farmers in clearing fields. It was not generally found in groves or dense stands, but as solitary trees scattered through forests of other woods. The trunks are tall and shapely, the crowns comparatively small. The form is ideal for sawlogs, and very few trees of America produce a higher percentage of clear, first cla.s.s lumber. That is because the forest-grown poplar early sheds its lower branches, and the trunks lay on nothing but clear wood. In the yellow poplar's region it was the princ.i.p.al wood of which the pioneers made their canoes for crossing and navigating rivers. It is still best known by the name canoewood in some regions. It worked easily and was light, and a thin-sh.e.l.led canoe lasted many years, barring floods and other accidents. Builders of pirogues, keelboats, barges, and other vessels for inland navigation in early times when roads were few and streams were the princ.i.p.al highways of commerce, found no timber superior to yellow poplar. It could be had in planks of great size and free from defects, and while not as strong as oak, it was strong enough to withstand the usual knocks and buffetings of river traffic.

Yellow poplar sawlogs have probably exceeded in number any other wood, except white pine, floated down rivers and creeks to market. The wood floats well and lumbermen have usually pushed far up the rivers, ahead of other lumber operations, to procure it. Enormous drives have gone and are still going out of rivers in the Appalachian region.

The uses of yellow poplar are so many that an enumeration is impracticable, except by general cla.s.ses. These are boxes and woodenware, vehicles, furniture, interior finish, and car building.

There is another cla.s.s consisting of low-grade work, such as common lumber, pulpwood, and the like.

There is a cla.s.s of commodities which are usually packed in boxes and require a wood that will impart neither taste nor stain. That requirement is met by yellow poplar. It has been an important wood for boxes in which food products are shipped. It is so used less frequently now than formerly because of increased cost, but veneer is employed to a large extent, and while the total quant.i.ty of wood going into box factories is smaller than formerly, the actual number and contents of poplar boxes are perhaps about the same. It is a white wood and shows printing and stenciling clearly. That is an important point with many manufacturers who wish to print their advertis.e.m.e.nts on the boxes which they send out. Woodenware, particularly ironing boards, bread boards, and pantry and kitchen utensils, are largely made of poplar because it is light, attractive, and easily kept clean. It is popular as pumplogs for the same reason.

As a vehicle wood, yellow poplar is not a compet.i.tor of oak and hickory.

They are for running gear and frames; poplar for tops and bodies. No wood excels it for wide panels. It receives finish and paint so well that it is not surpa.s.sed by the smoothest metals. Many of the finest carriage and automobile tops are largely of this wood. In case of slight accidents it resists dints much better than sheet metal.

Cheap furniture was once made of yellow poplar. It now enters into the best kinds, and is finished in imitation of costly woods, notably mahogany, birch, and cherry. No American wood will take a higher polish.

It is also much employed as an interior wood by furniture manufacturers.

It fills an important place as cores or backing over which veneers are glued.

When used as an interior house finish and in car building, it is nearly always stained or painted. Many of the broad handsome panels in pa.s.senger cars, which pa.s.s for cherry, birch, mahogany, or rosewood, are yellow poplar, to which the finisher and decorator have given their best touches.

All poplar lumber is not wide, clear stock, though much of it is. The lower grades go as common lumber and small trees are cut for pulpwood. A large part of the demand for high-grade yellow poplar is in foreign countries, and a regular oversea trade is carried on by exporters.

Foreign manufacturers put the wood to practically the same uses as the best grades in this country.

Yellow poplar seasons well, and is a satisfactory wood to handle. When thoroughly dry it holds its shape with the best of woods. Bluing is apt to affect the green wood if unduly exposed. Fresh poplar chips in damp situations sometimes change to a conspicuous blue color within a day or two. However, millmen do not experience much difficulty in preventing the bluing of the lumber.

GYMINDA (_Gyminda grisebachii_) is also called false boxwood, and belongs to the staff family. The name gyminda is artificial and meaningless. The genus has a single species which occurs in the islands of southern Florida where trees of largest size are scarcely twenty-five feet high and six inches in diameter. The wood is very heavy, hard, fine-grained, and is nearly black. It is suitable for small articles, but it is not known to be so used, and its scarcity renders improbable any important future use of the wood. The fruit is a small berry, ripening in November. The range of the species extends to Cuba, Porto Rico, and other islands of the West Indies.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

EVERGREEN MAGNOLIA

[Ill.u.s.tration: EVERGREEN MAGNOLIA]

EVERGREEN MAGNOLIA

(_Magnolia Ftida_)

This is not a timber tree of first importance. A few years ago it was seldom cut except in very small quant.i.ties; but it was found to possess good qualities, and now it goes regularly to the mills which saw hardwoods in the region where it grows. The wood of different magnolia trees, or even the wood of the same tree, shows lack of uniformity. Some of it looks like yellow poplar and compares favorably with it in several particulars, while other of it is very dark, with hard flinty streaks which not only present a poor appearance, but dull the tools of the woodworking machines and create an unfavorable impression of the wood generally. This magnolia holds pretty closely to the damp lands in all parts of its range. The amount of the annual cut is not known, because it goes in with the minor species in most places and no separate account is taken. It is coming into more notice every year, and some manufacturers have been so successful in finding ways to make it serviceable that the best grades are easily sold. The wood does not hold its color very well. The light-colored sapwood is apt to become darker after exposure to the air, and the dark heartwood fades a little. The tree is so handsome in the forest that it is occasionally spared when the surrounding trees are removed.

It is doubtful if any American tree surpa.s.ses it as an ornament when its leaves, trunk, flowers, and bark are considered. It is not perfect in all of these particulars; in fact, it possesses some serious faults. The crown is often too small for the tree's height; the branches straggle, many on some parts of the trunk and few on others; the flowers are objectionable because of strong odor which is unpleasant to most people.

But these shortcomings are more than compensated for by splendid qualities. The rich, dark green of the leaves, their size and profusion, their changeless l.u.s.ter, place them in a position almost beyond the reach of rivalry from any other tree.

Those who see this splendid inhabitant of the forest only where it has been planted in northern states, and elsewhere outside of its natural range, miss much of the best it has to give. It belongs in the South.

The wet lands, the small elevations in deep swamps, the flat country where forests are dense, are its home. The yellowish-green trunk rises through the tangled foliage that keeps near the ground, and towers fifty feet above, and there spreads in a crown of green so deep that it is almost black. It likes company, and seldom grows solitary. Its a.s.sociates are the southern maples, red gum, tupelo, cypress, a dozen species of oak, and occasionally pines on nearby higher ground.

Festoons of grayish-green Spanish moss often add to the tropical character of the scene. The moss seldom hangs on the magnolia, but is frequently abundant on surrounding trees.

Lumbermen formerly left the evergreen magnolia trees on tracts from which they cut nearly everything else. Large areas which had once been regarded as swamps were thus converted into parks of giant magnolias, many of which towered seventy or eighty feet. The tracts were left wild, and those who so left them had no purpose of providing ornament, but they did so. Many a scene was made grand by its magnolias, after other forest growth had been cut away.

The range of evergreen magnolia is from North Carolina to Florida and west to Arkansas and Texas. The species reaches largest size in the vicinity of the Mississippi, both east and west of it. Trees eighty feet high and four feet in diameter occur, and trunks are often without limbs one-half or two-thirds their length, when they grow in forests.

The common name for the tree in most parts of its range is simply magnolia, though that name fails to distinguish it from several other species, some of which are a.s.sociated with it. Occasionally it is called big laurel, great laurel magnolia, laurel-leaved magnolia, laurel, and laurel bay. Bull bay is a common name for it in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. It is called bat tree, but the reason for such a name is not known.

Leaves are from five to eight inches long and two or three wide, and dark green above, but lighter below. They fall in the spring after remaining on the branches two whole years.

The odor of the flowers is unpleasant, but they are attractive to the sight, being six or eight inches across, with purple bases. The flowering habit of this tree is all that could be desired. It is in bloom from April till August.

The fruit resembles that of the other magnolias and is three or four inches long and two or less wide. Its color is rusty-brown. The ripe seeds hang awhile by short threads, according to the habit of the family. The wood is stronger than poplar, fully as stiff, and nearly fifty per cent heavier. The annual rings are rather vaguely marked by narrow bands of summerwood. Pores are diffuse, plentiful, and very small. Medullary rays are larger than those of yellow poplar, and show fairly well in quarter-sawed stock. The wood is compact and easily worked, except when hard streaks are encountered. The surface finishes with a satiny l.u.s.ter; color creamy-white, yellowish-white, or often light brown. Occasionally the wood is nearly diametrically the opposite of this, and is of all darker shades up to purple, black, and blue black. The appearance of the dark wood suggests decay, but those who pa.s.s it through machines, or work it by hand, consider it as sound as the lighter colored wood.

The uses of magnolia are much the same in all parts of its range, and those of Louisiana, where the utilization of the wood has been studied more closely than in other regions, indicate the scope of its usefulness. It is there made into parts of boats, bar fixtures, boxes, broom handles, brush backs, crates, door panels, dugout canoes, excelsior, furniture shelving, interior finish, ox yokes, panels, and wagon boxes. In Texas where the annual consumption probably exceeds a million feet, it is employed by furniture makers, and appears in window blinds, packing boxes, sash, and molding. In Mississippi, fine mantels are made of carefully selected wood, quarter-sawed to bring out the small, square "mirrors" produced by radial cutting of the medullary rays.

Evergreen magnolia has long been planted for ornament in this country and Europe. It survives the winters at Philadelphia. Several varieties have been developed by cultivation and are sold by nurseries.

Southern forests have contributed, and still contribute, large quant.i.ties of magnolia leaves for decorations in northern cities during winter. The flowers are not successfully shipped because they are easily bruised, and they quickly lose their freshness and beauty.

SWEET MAGNOLIA (_Magnolia glauca_) ranges from Ma.s.sachusetts to Texas and south to Florida. It reaches its largest size on the hummock lands of the latter state. Trees are occasionally seventy feet high and three or more in diameter, but in many parts of its range it is small, even shrubby. Among the names by which it is known are white bay, swamp laurel, swamp sa.s.safras, swamp magnolia, white laurel, and beaver-tree. It inhabits swamps in the northern part of its range, hence the frequency of the word "swamp" in coining names for it. Beaver-tree as a name is probably due to its former abundance about beaver dams, where impounded water made the ground swampy. In the North, sweet magnolia's chief value is in its flowers, which are two or three inches across, creamy-white, and fragrant. They were formerly very abundant near the mouth of the Susquehanna river in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and northward through New Jersey; but the traffic in the flowers has destroyed the growth in many places where once plentiful. It is not important as a timber resource, but it is employed for a number of useful purposes where logs of fair size may be had. The sapwood is creamy-white, but the heart is nearly as dark as mahogany, and in Texas it is used to imitate that wood. The brown and other shades combine with fine effect. One of its common uses is for broom handles. Heartwood is worked into high-grade chairs. It takes a beautiful polish.

FRASER UMBRELLA (_Magnolia fraseri_) ranges south from the Virginia mountains to Florida and west to Mississippi. It is of largest size in South Carolina where trees are sometimes thirty feet high and a foot or more in diameter. The leaves fall in autumn of the first year; the creamy-white, sweetly-scented flowers are eight or ten inches in diameter, and the fruit resembles that of the other magnolias. The wood is weak, soft, and light. The heart is clear brown, the sapwood nearly white. It has not been reported in use for any commercial purpose. Among its other names it is known as long-leaved cuc.u.mber tree, ear-leaved umbrella tree, Indian bitters, water lily tree, and mountain magnolia. In cultivation this species is hardy as far north as Ma.s.sachusetts, and it is planted for ornament in Europe.

PYRAMID MAGNOLIA (_Magnolia pyramidata_) seems to have generally escaped the notice of laymen, and it therefore has no English name except the translation of the Latin term by which botanists know it.

Its habitat lies in southern Georgia and Alabama, and western Florida, and it is occasionally seen in cultivation in western Europe. It is a slender tree, twenty feet or more in height. Its flowers are three or four inches in diameter, and creamy-white in color. A tree so scarce cannot be expected to be commercially important.

WESTERN BLACK WILLOW (_Salix lasiandra_) is a rather large tree when at its best, reaching a diameter of two feet or more, and a height of fifty, but in other parts of its range it rarely exceeds ten feet in height. It follows the western mountain ranges southward from British Columbia into California. The wood is soft, light, and brittle, and is used little if at all. Lyall willow (_Salix lasiandra lyalli_) is a well marked variety of this species and is a tree of respectable size.