from Chris
When the tulip poplars drop their blossoms in early May, it’s like a little taste of autumn in the freshest time of the year. Little dashes of orange, yellow, and honeydew-green sprinkle the trails.
Tulip poplars, common in Virginia, are the tallest hardwoods in North America, reaching as high as 150 feet. Their leaves look like webbed, six-fingered palms, symmetrical in design. Their blossoms look like little tulips—which is where the trees get their name from—although by the time they drop from the forest canopy, the flowers have often stretched themselves open enough that they’ve lost their tulipy look.
Thomas Jefferson particularly loved tulip poplars, which he called “the Juno of our groves.” He planted a pair of them, like sentinels, on either side of his back porch, and over the course of two centuries, they grew to towering heights. Both finally came down within the past decade, but years ago, I had the chance to buy a small sapling grown from the seeds of one of the trees. That tree now grows outside my son’s home in western New York.
Here at Stevenson Ridge, we have many tulip poplars growing wild in the forest on the back of the property, and several sprinkled in the woodlots around the cabins. They are done blossoming for the year, which is a sign that spring is past and summer is moving in!