No, unfortunately I have never seen a tulip tree here, but I have been looking, as I'm from the East Coast, where they are one of my favorite forest trees, growing fast, straight, tall and massive, with their beautiful flowers and seed capsules to boot.

I seem to remember having read that they need very deep, fertile, slightly acidic soil, which might make them difficult to grow here. Then again, if many of the maples, sweetgum, magnolia, and others can make it, maybe it's just a question of trying it out.

Keep us posted regarding the search for this tree in NM!

Thanks. I'm from NYC myself, hence my interest, too. It's a member of the Magnolia family, and you see some of those around here, so maybe there's hope. I'm looking for a nursery.

I still don't know of a local source, but I checked out the Dave's Garden website to see if any are being grown nearby. Tulip tree apparently does well in the hot central valley of CA, as well as arid western CO, also the plains states of OK and KS, and intermountain regions of ID and MT. Based on this, I would say there is hope for some areas of NM, especially on deep soils where other broadleaved trees thrive.

BUT, you would not get the super fast growth and giant size for which the species is known... for that, the cottonwood is still king in this part of the world.