Yellow Poplar

Description:

Large deciduous tree. It can grow to more than 50 m (165 feet) in virgin cove forests of the Appalachian Mountains, often with no limbs until it reaches 25–30 m (80–100 feet) in height, making it a very valuable timber tree. The flowers are pale green or yellow (rarely white), with an orange band on the tepals; they yield large quantities of nectar. The narrow light brown cone, formed by many samara-like carpels which fall, leaving the axis persistent all winter. These pictures show the winter bark and remaining axis.

Habitat:

It is native to eastern North America from Southern Ontario and Illinois eastward across southern New England and south to central Florida and Louisiana. This one was photographed in late winter at the Aiken Gopher Tortoise Heritage Preserve near Windsor (Aiken County), SC.

Notes:

It is also known as the tulip tree, American tulip tree, tuliptree, tulip poplar, whitewood, and fiddle-tree. April marks the start of the flowering period in the southern USA; trees at the northern limit of cultivation begin to flower in June. The flowers are pale green or yellow (rarely white), with an orange band on the tepals; they yield large quantities of nectar. The nectar is important as a source for bees to make honey.