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.