YELLOW POPLAR
(Liriodendron Tulipifera)

In diameter of trunk the yellow poplar is, next to sycamore, the largest hardwood tree of the United States, and if both height and trunk diameter are considered, it surpasses the sycamore in size. It belongs to a very old group of hardwoods which have come down from remote geological ages, and the species is now found only in the United States and China. Mature trees are from three to eight feet in diameter and from 90 to 180 in height.

It has many names in different parts of its range, but it is never mistaken for any other tree. The peculiar notched leaf is a sure means of identification. The resemblance of the flower to the tulip has given it the name tulip tree in some localities, and botanists prefer that name. It is so called in Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, District of Columbia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Ontario. Wood users in New England and in some of the other northern states prefer the name whitewood and it is so known, in part at least, in New England, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, South Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. Yellow poplar is the name preferred by lumbermen in nearly all regions where the tree is found in commercial quantities, notably in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee. The name is often shortened to poplar, which is used in Rhode Island, Delaware, North and South Carolina, Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana. The name tulip poplar is less frequently heard, and blue poplar and hickory poplar are terms used in West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina, but generally under the impression that they refer to a different form or species. In Rhode Island it is called popple, in New York cucumber tree, and canoe wood in Tennessee and in the upper Ohio valley.

The botanical range of yellow poplar is wider than its commercial range; that is, a few trees are found in regions surrounding the borders of the district where the tree is profitably lumbered. The boundaries of its range run from southwestern Vermont, westward to Lake Michigan near Grand Haven, southward to northern Florida, and west of the Mississippi river in Missouri and Arkansas. The productive yellow poplar timber belt has never been that large but has clung pretty closely to the southern Appalachian mountain ranges and to certain districts lying both east and west of them. The best original stands were in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, western North Carolina, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and in some parts of Ohio and Indiana. However, considerable quantities of good yellow poplar have been cut in other regions.

The physical properties of the wood of yellow poplar fit it for many purposes but not for all. It is not very strong and is tolerably brittle. It is light in weight, medium soft, and is easily worked. The annual rings of growth are not prominent compared with some of the oaks, yet select logs show nicely in quarter-sawing. The medullary rays are numerous, but small and not prominent, for which reason bright streaks and flecks are not characteristic of the wood. Yellow poplar is fairly stiff and elastic, but is not often selected on account of those qualities. In color it is light yellow or brown. The color gives name to the tree. The sapwood is whiter, and it is the abnormally thick sapwood of some trees which causes them to be called white poplar. The wood has little figure, and it is seldom employed for fine work without stain or paint of some kind. It is not usually classed as long lasting when exposed to the weather, yet cases are known where weather boarding of houses, and bridge and mill timbers of yellow poplar have outlasted the generation of builders.

The quantity of yellow poplar in the country is but a remnant of the former enormous supply that covered the rich valleys and fertile coves in a region exceeding 200,000 square miles. It occupied the best land, and much was destroyed by farmers in clearing fields. It was not generally found in groves or dense stands, but as solitary trees scattered through forests of other woods. The trunks are tall and shapely, the crowns comparatively small. The form is ideal for sawlogs, and very few trees of America produce a higher percentage of clear, first class lumber. That is because the forest-grown poplar early sheds its lower branches, and the trunks lay on nothing but clear wood. In the yellow poplar’s region it was the principal wood of which the pioneers made their canoes for crossing and navigating rivers. It is still best known by the name canoewood in some regions. It worked easily and was light, and a thin-shelled canoe lasted many years, barring floods and other accidents. Builders of pirogues, keelboats, barges, and other vessels for inland navigation in early times when roads were few and streams were the principal highways of commerce, found no timber superior to yellow poplar. It could be had in planks of great size and free from defects, and while not as strong as oak, it was strong enough to withstand the usual knocks and buffetings of river traffic.

Yellow poplar sawlogs have probably exceeded in number any other wood, except white pine, floated down rivers and creeks to market. The wood floats well and lumbermen have usually pushed far up the rivers, ahead of other lumber operations, to procure it. Enormous drives have gone and are still going out of rivers in the Appalachian region.

The uses of yellow poplar are so many that an enumeration is impracticable, except by general classes. These are boxes and woodenware, vehicles, furniture, interior finish, and car building. There is another class consisting of low-grade work, such as common lumber, pulpwood, and the like.

There is a class of commodities which are usually packed in boxes and require a wood that will impart neither taste nor stain. That requirement is met by yellow poplar. It has been an important wood for boxes in which food products are shipped. It is so used less frequently now than formerly because of increased cost, but veneer is employed to a large extent, and while the total quantity of wood going into box factories is smaller than formerly, the actual number and contents of poplar boxes are perhaps about the same. It is a white wood and shows printing and stenciling clearly. That is an important point with many manufacturers who wish to print their advertisements on the boxes which they send out. Woodenware, particularly ironing boards, bread boards, and pantry and kitchen utensils, are largely made of poplar because it is light, attractive, and easily kept clean. It is popular as pumplogs for the same reason.

As a vehicle wood, yellow poplar is not a competitor of oak and hickory. They are for running gear and frames; poplar for tops and bodies. No wood excels it for wide panels. It receives finish and paint so well that it is not surpassed by the smoothest metals. Many of the finest carriage and automobile tops are largely of this wood. In case of slight accidents it resists dints much better than sheet metal.

Cheap furniture was once made of yellow poplar. It now enters into the best kinds, and is finished in imitation of costly woods, notably mahogany, birch, and cherry. No American wood will take a higher polish. It is also much employed as an interior wood by furniture manufacturers. It fills an important place as cores or backing over which veneers are glued.

When used as an interior house finish and in car building, it is nearly always stained or painted. Many of the broad handsome panels in passenger cars, which pass for cherry, birch, mahogany, or rosewood, are yellow poplar, to which the finisher and decorator have given their best touches.

All poplar lumber is not wide, clear stock, though much of it is. The lower grades go as common lumber and small trees are cut for pulpwood. A large part of the demand for high-grade yellow poplar is in foreign countries, and a regular oversea trade is carried on by exporters. Foreign manufacturers put the wood to practically the same uses as the best grades in this country.

Yellow poplar seasons well, and is a satisfactory wood to handle. When thoroughly dry it holds its shape with the best of woods. Bluing is apt to affect the green wood if unduly exposed. Fresh poplar chips in damp situations sometimes change to a conspicuous blue color within a day or two. However, millmen do not experience much difficulty in preventing the bluing of the lumber.

Gyminda (Gyminda grisebachii) is also called false boxwood, and belongs to the staff family. The name gyminda is artificial and meaningless. The genus has a single species which occurs in the islands of southern Florida where trees of largest size are scarcely twenty-five feet high and six inches in diameter. The wood is very heavy, hard, fine-grained, and is nearly black. It is suitable for small articles, but it is not known to be so used, and its scarcity renders improbable any important future use of the wood. The fruit is a small berry, ripening in November. The range of the species extends to Cuba, Porto Rico, and other islands of the West Indies.