{"id":55659,"date":"2017-06-21T12:54:49","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T16:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nybg.org\/plant-talk\/?p=55659"},"modified":"2017-06-21T12:55:07","modified_gmt":"2017-06-21T16:55:07","slug":"whats-in-a-plant-name-liriodendron-tulipifera-l","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/2017\/06\/horticulture-2\/whats-in-a-plant-name-liriodendron-tulipifera-l\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s in a Plant Name: Liriodendron tulipifera L."},"content":{"rendered":"

Katherine Wagner-Reiss has her certificate in botany from NYBG and has been a tour guide here for two years.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Photo<\/a>
Liriodendron tulipifera L.<\/em> flower<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The NYBG Tulip Tree All\u00e9e is a NYC Landmark. Twenty-six Liriodendron tulipifera L.<\/em> were planted in 1903. While it is unusual for a Landmark to be composed of living things, people should be able to enjoy this Landmark for hundreds of years to come, since the trees were 10 years old at planting and individual tulip trees have been known to live for 500 years. These majestic trees are in the magnolia family.<\/p>\n

As you face the Library Building, notice one tulip tree with a larger girth in the uppermost left-hand corner; as the Library was being built, this original tree was preserved and it may well have been the inspiration for planting the other 26.<\/p>\n

Now, to dissect the Latinized name: Lirio<\/em> derives from the Greek word for lily, dendron<\/em> from the Greek word for tree, and tulipifera<\/em> means “tulip-bearing.” Curious that both the leaves and the flowers have a tulip shape! Whenever I see the L.<\/em> after the species name, I feel a close tie with history, since that signifies that Carl Linnaeus, the father of botany, officially gave that Latinized name to the plant.
\n
\nTwo species of Liriodendron<\/em> are known: the native L. tulipifera L.<\/em> and \u00a0L. chinense Sarg.<\/em>, native to China. If you look for L. chinense<\/em> in the Liasson Daffodil Valley behind the Library Building, you will easily recognize it as a tulip tree. However, this species has more deeply lobed leaves and the flowers show only green and yellow, lacking the orange band of the native species.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Liriodendron tulipifera L.<\/em> leaf<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NYBG also grows two cultivars of Liriodendron tulipifera L.<\/em> \u2018Ardis\u2019 is a dwarf in the Ross Conifer Collection near the spruces. The origins of cultivar names are often mysterious, but through the research of Esther Jackson at the NYBG Library I learned that \u2018Ardis\u2019 was the first name of\u00a0 Mrs. W.F. Sonnemann, the woman who, with her husband, selected this cultivar. A second cultivar,\u00a0 \u2018Fastigiata\u2019 (meaning columnar), has been growing in the Magnolia\/Oak collection since 1895! Other cultivars are available commercially\u2014some with variegated leaves.<\/p>\n

The tulip tree has great significance in the history of NYBG, and in celebration of its 100th anniversary, 500 two-year-old tulip trees were given to the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation.<\/p>\n

So enjoy the Tulip Tree All\u00e9e, beautiful in all four seasons, and made all the more striking at this time by the Chihuly resin sculpture in the Fountain of Life at the head of the All\u00e9e.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While it is unusual for a Landmark to be composed of living things, people should be able to enjoy this Landmark for hundreds of years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132435,"featured_media":55660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[3824],"tags":[2901,5223,214,2900],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Picture1-1.png","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ph0lU-etJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55659"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55659"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55665,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55659\/revisions\/55665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}