bark on the young shoots is smooth and of a rich apple-green, becoming afterwards of a soft glaucous or whitish color. Before opening, the leaves are enclosed by the stipules, which, falling, leave rings encircling the branch; when young, the leaves are covered with a pubescence, which, beneath, has a silken lustre. They are entire, elliptical, or slightly obovate, on short, tapering petioles, and, when mature, smooth, and light green above, pale-glaucous beneath, and of a soft, leathery texture. The mid-rib is prominent beneath, for the whole length of the leaf. The calyx of the solitary, terminal flowers, consists of 3 concave, obovate, membranaceous sepals, resembling petals, but less delicate in texture. The corolla has usually 9 delicately white petals, tapering at base, and rounded at the extremity, arranged in 3 circles, and mutually enfolding each other before expansion. The stamens are very numerous, 80 to 100 or more, in spiral lines on the conical, green torus, or receptacle,— 3 or 4 of the outer ones often partly turned into petals. Anthers very long, yellow, pointed, set upon the inner side of the short filament and opening inwardly. Styles many, on a conical receptacle; stigmas long, yellow, turned back at the tip, and rising much above the ends of the long anthers. The fruit is a cone about two inches long, covered with scale-like, imbricated ovaries, from which, when mature, escape the scarlet, obovate seeds, which, instead of falling at once to the ground, remain some time suspended by a slender thread.

No plant is, at every season and in every condition, more beautiful. The flower, two or three inches broad, is as beautiful and almost as fragrant as the water lily. Like most other plants, growing naturally in wet ground, it may easily be made to thrive in dry, but will not then continue long in flower. In moist situations, particularly if protected through the winter by a covering of boughs or mats, it continues to produce its flowers to the end of the warm season.

Like other plants of this genus, the Small Magnolia possesses valuable properties as a tonic and as a warm stimulant and diaphoretic; and it has been used with great success in chronic rheumatism, in intermittent fevers, and particularly in fever and ague. To secure the virtues of the plant, a tincture should be

made of the bark or cones, while green, and before the volatile parts have escaped.*

The small magnolia may be propagated by layers, which require two years to root sufficiently, and by seed. The seed should be preserved in moist bog earth, and sown very early in spring, in earth of the same kind.

XL. 2. THE TULIP TREE. LIRIODENDRON.

A genus of a single species, found only in North America. The calyx is of 3 sepals which fall at the same time with the petals; the lily-like, bell-shaped corolla, of 6 petals in two rows; the stamens are very numerous, as are the small, imbricated, 1- or 2-seeded, winged ovaries or seed-vessels.

THE TULIP TREE. L. tulipifera. L.

Figured in Catesby's Birds, Plate 48; Michaux, Sylva, II, Plate 61; Abbott's Insects of Georgia, II, Plate 102; Bigelow's Medical Botany, Plate 31; Audubon's Birds, I, Plate 12.

The tulip tree is a tall, stately, upright tree, with a magnificent, columnar trunk and an open head, rounded above. It spreads little towards the root, but has large limbs, stretching strongly upwards and throwing out branches at all angles. The bark of the trunk is of a dark ash color, with very numerous, small, superficial rugosities, though, when seen at a distance, it has a somewhat smoothish appearance. The recent shoots are of a bright brown, or chestnut color, smooth, with a grayish bloom-like dust upon it, and distant, narrow dots. The older branches are brown, and seem as if covered with a transparent membrane.

The terminal bud is formed by the two stipules cohering by their edges,—into an oblong, rounded, purse-like sheath. On opening this, a minute leaf is found, bent down and folded together in a single fold, by the side of another, smaller sheath. When opening naturally, the stipules expand and protect the leaf till it attains its full size, when they are an inch or two long, of a yellowish-green color, oblong, broader towards the

* Bigelow, American Medical Botany, II, 71.

end, rounded, with a minute point. They then fall, leaving a slight annular scar, above the base of the leaf.

The leaves are on long, angular footstalks, very large at base. They are 4-lobed, the lobes ending in rounded or sharp points, and separated by broad, shallow sinuses. The terminal lobes end abruptly, as if the extremity of the leaf had been cut off. In large leaves, each of the lobes is occasionally divided into 2, and the lower ones sometimes into 3 or more partial lobes or large teeth. In some varieties, the points of the lobes are obtuse. The leaves are smooth, and of a light green above, glaucous or whitish beneath, with downy nerves, and finely reticulated veins.

The large, solitary flowers have the shape, size and appearance of a lily. They are contained in a sheath of 2 triangular leaves, which are thrown off by the expansion of the flower. The sepals are of a greenish color, striate or veined and dotted, sub-coriaceous in texture, concave and spreading, afterwards bending back. The petals are also striate or veined and dotted, of a greenish-yellow, somewhat fleshy in texture, and marked towards the base with a crescent-shaped spot of bright orange. In the centre is a large, conical, pointed pistil, surrounded by numerous stamens with long anthers.

The bark of the root and branches of the tulip tree is remarkable for its pungent, bitter and aromatic taste, and agreeably aromatic odor, and acts on the system as a stimulating tonic, as a diaphoretic and as a sudorific. It has been successfully employed in the treatment of chronic rheumatism and intermittent fever. The useful properties are most completely extracted by alcohol.-Big. Med. Bot., II, 111.

The wood of the tulip tree, under the name of white wood, is extensively used in every part of the country. In the Western States, it supplies, in a great degree, the deficiency of pine, and is used by the joiner, as a substitute, in the inner wood work of houses. In New England, it is preferred to other kinds of wood in all uses which require great flexibility, as about stairs, for the wash-board in circular rooms and for the pannels of carriages; also for the bottom of drawers, and for pannels in common wardrobes and other small articles. It is remarkably

white, soft, smooth, fine-grained, and is very easily wrought, and bent to any required shape. It comes into Massachusetts from New York, usually in square cornered boards 3 feet wide and 12 feet long.

Considerable numbers of this tree are found in several towns on Westfield River, particularly in Russell. It is also found native, very rarely, in the eastern part of the State.

The tulip tree is found abundantly in Canada West, and the Western States, where it sometimes reaches the height of 120 or 140 feet with a diameter of 5 or 6. In New England, and along the Atlantic coast to Florida, it does not reach these ample dimensions, but is still a very noble tree. Michaux thinks that, next to the buttonwood, it attains, in favorable situations, in a deep, cool, moist soil, the largest size of any tree in the United States.

The tulip tree is readily propagated by seeds, which require a fine, soft mould, and a cool and shady situation. If sown in autumn, they come up the succeeding spring, but if sown in spring, they often remain a year in the ground. Varieties are propagated by layers or by budding or grafting. This tree, like the magnolias, has few fibres on its roots, and is, therefore, not readily transplanted.

SECOND GENERAL DIVISION.

CHAPTER VIII. MONOCOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS.

THIS division is of little comparative importance in extratropical regions. In this State, it is represented by a few families of humble plants, among which are, however, the grasses and those which produce the various kinds of corn and grain. The noblest of monocotyledonous plants, the palms, are confined to the warmer climates.

The stem of monocotyledonous plants is not composed of distinct pith, wood and bark, the two latter arranged in concentric rings or zones and traversed by medullary rays, but of bundles of vessels and woody fibres traversing the stem somewhat irregularly from the base of the leaves to the roots or to points near the surface of the stem. The leaves have ribs and veins nearly parallel, and are not usually articulated to the stem, but continuous, so that, when they wither and decay, they leave a ragged, indefinite, partial stalk, instead of the well-marked scar left by the fall of the leaf of a dicotyledonous plant. The parts of the flowers are in threes or multiples of three. The embryo of the seeds is undivided, and has a single lobe or cotyledon, and a single radicle.

FAMILY XLI. THE SMILAX FAMILY. SMILA CEÆ. R. BROWN.

This small family, the only one containing monocotyledonous plants which in our climate have woody stems, includes plants differing considerably in aspect, habits and duration. To it belong the small, herbaceous annuals, Trillium, Medèola, Streptopus, Convallària and Uvulària, and the woody, climbing plants of the genus Smilax. It is found principally in Asia and North America. It is characterized by having the calyx and corolla usually confounded, of six parts resembling petals in being colored; 6 stamens; style trifid; 3 stigmas or a 3-parted stigma, and the fruit a roundish berry.