Stamp of the Day: tulip tree

For those of you that still wonder how an American tulip tree looks like (since all you saw was a brown fruit in my end of 2012 post), here it is on a Swedish (!) stamp.  This tall tree has large, yellow flowers that look a little bit like a tulip, but is related to magnolias.  In Sweden this tree only grows in botanical gardens, and the stamp was issued in honor of the Botanical Garden in Lund in southern Sweden.  We have these trees all around in the forest here around us.  The colonialists in North America used this plant against fevers and malaria.  The first time I saw one was at Kew Gardens in London and I thought then that it was named after the shape of the leaves.  I had yet to see the flowers, which are even more tulip-like. Liriodendron tulipifera, at your service!