Species name: Liriodendron tulipfera
Common name: Tulip tree
Location: Ontario
Since the weather has been so sunny and bright lately, I've been thinking a lot about spring. And what would possibly make you think more of spring than flowers?!
The tulip tree is one of the native species of trees of Southwestern Ontario. Due to habitat loss, it is becoming more and more rare in the environment. It is rather slow-growing, making it not an idea ornamental tree if you require a lot of shade quickly, but it will grow to be a very large tree that has ideal characteristics to withstand the climate of this area. It produces very showy flowers in the late spring (late May, early June) that are a brilliant orange and yellow. Unlike Magnolia trees, they do not turn into a mess on your front lawn after flowering is done, and their flowers are much longer-lived than the non-native Magnolia trees. Tulip trees do not produce what you would traditionally think of as a "seed", so there's also very little risk of a bunch of baby tulip trees popping up out of the lawn in the early spring. Technically, tulip trees do not get their name from the shape of their flowers, but rather the shape of their leaves. Some early botanist thought they looked like tulip flowers he saw in Holland, and so the name stuck. I guess I don't have the imagination required to see that!
Do native species a favour and plant one today!
My mother once transplanted a native plant that she found along a roadside in Utah where she lives. The Mentzelia laevicaulis plant, based on my research, has never successfully been cultivated outside of natural dispersion. My mother's attempt to add the plant to her garden ended in failure primarily because of the lack of resesarch on the plant.
ReplyDeleteIn 2004 my research of published material on the Mentzelia laevicaulis showed no new research since the late 1930s-early 1940s. Only compiled reports based on the previously published data. Like I said, no new research. I couldn't even get a response about the plant from any ot the botany professors who specialized in native plants when I asked them about it.
I am all for native plants. Where I live now, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in the US, has all kinds of wetland plants that are native to the area. An old-timer of the area told me when I first moved here that the smells of the marsh and of the vegetation may be harsh at first, but eventually you learn to love them.