How Do Tulip Trees Seed?

Reproduction

• Tulip trees are angiosperms -- flowering plants. The flowers contain male stamens that shed pollen and female pistils that contain ovules that potentially become seeds. When pollen reaches the pistil, fertilization occurs once the male genetic material fuses with the ovule. Reproduction in tulip trees yields seeds with variable DNA. Although all seeds that germinate become tulip trees, they possess varying characteristics and genetic material compared to the parent tree.

Flower Features

• Since tulip trees grow so tall and flowers occur mainly in the upper branches, it's not easy to see a blossom. With the leaves already developed in late spring to early summer, branch tips bear a light greenish-yellow, cup-shaped flower that measures 2 to 3 inches in size. Inside the flower is a contrasting orange blotch on the petal bases. Insects pollinate the blossoms. According to the U.S. Forest Service, tulip trees bloom in April in the southern U.S. and into June in the northern reaches of its hardiness range.

Fruits

• After flower petals drop off, the fertilized ovules develop into a cone-like, light green fruit 2 to 3 inches long. Each cone contains overlapped samaras, or winged seeds, that contain one or two seeds. Across the summer, the cone ripens, changing color from green to yellow and eventually brownish-tan and dries out by fall. The narrow, pointed samaras in the cones scatter in wind in late fall to early winter. Some fruit cones persist on the branches across winter and continue to disperse samaras into the wind into the following spring.

Seed Insight

• Franklin T. Bonner of the U.S. Forest Service's Southern Research Station in Mississippi states that tulip trees as young as 9 years old may begin flowering and setting fruits with seeds. Typically, trees in the age range of 15 to 20 years are expected to flower and bear seeds. While many fruits develop on a tulip tree, not all the samaras in the cone-shaped fruit contain seeds. In fact, an average of only 10 percent of all samaras house viable seeds, although that number varies from tree to tree as well as year to year.