Tulip Trees

Tulip trees reserve their charms for those who seek them out. Demure in all seasons, tulip trees are now discreetly displaying their unusual fruits.

The fruits hang on into the winter even after dispersing their winged seeds into the wind. Spring brings the "tulips", pale yellow blooms tinged with orange and green. Their unassertive colors can blend into the foliage and fail to catch your eye. But when you spot the flowers unexpectedly you are rewarded with the feeling of having discovered a secret.

Once you have seen a tulip tree leaf, you will never mistake it for that of another species. The distinctive shape has been described as that of a maple leaf with its tip cut off. The leaves turn a handsome yellow in the fall.

There is a massive and beautiful tulip tree at 443 Stelle Avenue near the corner of Field.

A tulip tree at 1001 Central Avenue illustrates two of the species' most typical features: a long, straight, slightly tapered trunk with no branches near the ground and a rather narrow crown. The form is distinctive enough that tulip trees can be recognized from a distance even when they are leafless.

970 Hillside Avenue provides another example of a mature tulip tree.

Tulip trees are also called tulip poplars or yellow poplars. In fact, they're neither true poplars nor closely related to the poplars (genus Populus). In the lumberyard, however, tulip tree wood is called poplar and is commonly sold for use as interior trim. The wood is among the lightest in weight of the hardwoods and is not particularly strong.

Tulip trees grow fast and become huge. In a favorable environment they can grow to 200 feet tall with ten foot diameter trunks.(1) Their massive size and weak wood make them susceptible to damage by high winds. For that reason tulip trees are not often used as street trees.

Light and easily worked wood can have advantages, however. Tulip tree trunks were hollowed out by several native American tribes to make canoes. It is said that Daniel Boone took his family and belongings down the Ohio River in a sixty-foot tulip tree canoe, abandoning Kentucky for the Spanish Territory in the late 1700s. (2)

(1) Trees of Pennsylvania and the Northeast, Charles Fergus. Stackpole Books 2002, p. 148.

(2) A Natural History of North American Trees, Donald Culross Peattie. Houghton Mifflin 2007, p. 260.

Copyright Gregory Palermo

Black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia)

Black locusts get no respect. People have largely quit planting them. The trees plant themselves, soldiering on, spreading both by seed and by shoots from their roots. They’re often considered weeds. Capable of fixing nitrogen, black locusts don’t need fertile soil and can grow almost anywhere. (1) The reason we no longer plant them in any numbers is their terrible problem with borers, a very difficult to control insect pest that can cause them devastating damage.



The black locusts are in bloom now all over Plainfield. The beautiful, hanging creamy white panicles of these handsome American natives are quite eye-catching and resemble wisteria. They have the added bonus of fragrance. Aficionados of artisanal honeys might recognize the blooms as the source of acacia honey. The bark is also quite attractive. Deeply furrowed and distinctive, it makes the trees easy to spot even when they are bare of leaves.





Black locust wood used to be highly valued for fence posts. The very dense wood is resistant to rot in contact with the ground, a fact that led to the species' being spread around the country by humans from its native range in the vicinity of the southern Appalachian Mountains. The Jamestown colonists built hovels using black locust posts as their first habitations in 1607. The posts were noted by a visiting English naturalist to still be sound 100 years later. (2) The wood was also valued as fuel. A cord of black locust wood has the same energy content as a ton of anthracite coal. (3)

Drive or walk around and have a look. Most neighborhoods have some of these trees. An attractive example of black locust that is covered in blooms right now is in the front yard at 1400 Prospect Avenue.





Also in bloom now: tulip trees and horse chestnuts. Tulip tree blooms don't shout out their presence. You have to look for them because their pale yellow color blends in with the foliage. It's worth looking. The superb specimen at 443 Stelle Avenue merits a visit. Paulownias are also in bloom (if you can find one). There is a Paulownia (empress or princess tree, one of the symbols of the Japanese imperial throne) next to the garage at 1030 Sherman Avenue. Spectacular pale lavender blooms on a tree that, in this country at least, is not much valued.

(1) Nitrogen-fixing plants have a symbiotic relationship with certain soil bacteria that allows the plants to use atmospheric nitrogen. Unlike most plants, they don't require that their soil contain nitrogen compounds.
(2) Donald Culross Peattie, A Natural History of North American Trees, Houghton Mifflin 2007.
(3) Charles Fergus, Trees of Pennsylvania and the Northeast, Stackpole Books 2002.

Copyright Gregory Palermo