Styles deciduous from the follicles of the fruit; petals greenish or yellow; winter-buds silky tomentose. Petals greenish; branchlets glabrous.1. [M. acuminata] (A, C). Petals canary yellow; branchlets pubescent.2. [M. cordata] (C). Styles persistent on the follicles of the fruit. Petals white. Leaves coriaceous, persistent; fruit and branchlets tomentose.3. [M. grandiflora] (C). Leaves thin, deciduous (semipersistent in 4). Leaves cuneate at base. Leaves scattered along the branches, pale and pubescent below; winter-buds glabrous or silky pubescent.4. [M. virginiana] (A, C). Leaves crowded at the ends of the flowering branches, green and glabrous below; winter-buds glabrous.5. [M. tripetala] (A, C). Leaves cordate at the narrow base; fruit tomentose; winter-buds hoary-tomentose.6. [M. macrophylla] (C). Petals pale yellow or creamy white; leaves obovate-spathulate, auriculate, crowded at the ends of the flowering branches; winter-buds glabrous. Leaves acute; petals pale yellow; tips of the mature carpels elongated, straight or incurved.7. [M. Fraseri] (A, C). Leaves bluntly pointed; petals creamy white; tips of the mature carpels short, incurved.8. [M. pyramidata] (C).
1. [Magnolia acuminata] L. Cucumber-tree. Mountain Magnolia.
Leaves oblong-ovate, oblong-obovate or elliptic, abruptly short-pointed at apex, rounded, cuneate or rarely slightly cordate at base, when they unfold densely villose below and slightly villose above, and at maturity thin, yellow-green and glabrous on the upper surface, paler and glabrous or villose-pubescent on the lower surface, 6′—10′ long, and 4′—6′ wide, with often undulate margins; turning dull yellow or brown in the autumn before falling; petioles slender, pubescent early in the season, becoming glabrous, 1′—1½′ in length. Flowers on hairy soon glabrous pedicels ½′—¾′ long, bell-shaped, green or greenish yellow covered with a glaucous bloom; sepals membranaceous, acute, 1′—1½′ long, soon reflexed; petals 6, ovate or obovate, concave, pointed, erect, 2½′—3′ long, those of the outer row rarely more than 1′ wide and much wider than those of the inner row. Fruit ovoid or oblong, often curved, glabrous, dark red, 2½′—3′ long, rarely more than 1′ thick; seeds obovoid, acute, compressed, about ½′ long.
A pyramidal tree, 60°—90° high, with a trunk 3°—4° in diameter, comparatively small branches spreading below and erect toward the top of the tree, and slender branchlets coated at first with soft pale caducous hairs, soon bright red-brown, lustrous, and marked by numerous small pale lenticels, turning gray during their third season. Winter-buds: terminal, oblong-ovoid, acuminate, thickly covered with long lustrous white hairs, ½′—⅗′ long, and about three times as long as the obtuse compressed lateral buds nearly surrounded by the narrow elevated leaf-scars conspicuously marked by a double row of large fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Bark ⅓′—½′ thick, furrowed, dark brown, and covered by numerous thin scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, close-grained, durable, and light yellow-brown, with thin lighter colored often nearly white sapwood of usually 25—30 layers of annual growth; occasionally manufactured into lumber used for flooring and cabinet-making.
Distribution. Low mountain slopes and rocky banks of streams; southern Ontario, western New York, central to western Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and along the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia and to central Kentucky and Tennessee; banks of the Savannah River above Augusta, and in the neighborhood of Lumpkin, Stewart County, Georgia; northern Alabama, northeastern, northwestern and south-central Mississippi; Eagle Rock, Barry County, and on bluffs of the Mississippi River, Cape Girardeau County, Missouri, and Baxter County, Arkansas; in eastern Oklahoma (Page, Le Flore County); in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, represented by var. ludoviciana Sarg. differing in its broadly obovate, oval or ovate leaves, and in its larger flowers, 3½′—4′ long, the outer petals 1½′ wide. Rare at the north; most abundant and of its largest size at the base of the high mountains of the Carolinas and Tennessee up to altitudes of 4000°.
Often planted as an ornamental tree in the eastern states and in northern and central Europe.
2. [Magnolia cordata] Michx.
Magnolia acuminata var. cordata Sarg.
