Tuliptree flower |
Tuliptree Leaf (underside) |
Here in southern New England, Tuliptrees flower in June. They produce fairly large tulip-like flowers that are quite pretty, but most people are probably completely unaware of them, since they tend to appear on lofty branches and go unnoticed by the masses. Even the outline of the large leaves suggests a tulip.
While these trees are not rare in this area, they're not exactly plentiful either, and it's not often that we wood hoarders, er, turners, get an opportunity to acquire sizable chunks of tulip wood. So when I recently saw a bucket truck crew lopping the very top limbs off a huge one on a busy road, I knew it was time to call Bob to tell him there would soon be (literally) tons of large-diameter tulip on the ground. We were both already familiar with this big tree, since it was located 5 minutes from Bob's home, and we've admired its stature before.
Sadly and surprisingly though, someone somewhere had decided this monster was a threat to something somehow, and it had to be unceremoniously brought down. And down it came.
Read on ....