A researcher recently shared this tidbit with us. He found it in the “Scenes” column of the Chapel Hill Weekly, 5 May 1963, page 1:
“HUGH LEFLER (the happy debunker) informing his UNC history class that Fred Hargett, not William R. Davie, headed the committee that located the site of the University, and that Davie Poplar is really a tulip tree. So, technically, according to Dr. Lefler, ‘The Davie Poplar is really the Hargett Tulip.’”
Good to know they got the personal names right. The tree is technically a tulip poplar. So either name can be used to describe it. It’s also commonly called a yellow poplar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liriodendron_tulipifera