Leaves oblong-obovate to elliptic, abruptly short-pointed or rounded at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate, broad-cuneate or rarely rounded at base, when they unfold villose-pubescent more densely on the lower than on the upper surface, at maturity dark green, lustrous and glabrous above, paler and covered below with short matted pale hairs, 4′ or 5′ long, 2½′—3½′ wide, with a slender yellow midrib and primary veins; remaining green until late in the autumn and turning brown and falling after severe frost; petioles slender, covered when they first appear with matted silky white hairs, becoming glabrous, ½′—¾′ in length. Flowers on stout pedicels, ¼′—⅓′ long and covered with long silky white hairs, cup-shaped, bright canary yellow; sepals ovate, acute, soon reflexed; petals 6, erect and spreading, 1½′—1¾′ long, ½′—¾′ wide. Fruit oblong, often curved, glabrous, dark red, 1′—1½′ long, ½′—¾′ thick.
A shrub, 4°—8° high, flowering freely when not more than half that size; or in gardens a tree sometimes 20°—30° tall with a trunk 12′—15′ in diameter, spreading branches forming a round-topped head, and slender dark dull red-brown branchlets thickly covered during two years with short pubescence and marked by small pale lenticels. Winter-buds oblong-obovate, often falcate, bluntly pointed, thickly covered with matted pale hairs, the terminal ½′ long and ¼′ thick, the axillary ⅙′—¼′ in length and nearly surrounded by the narrow leaf-scars marked by an irregular row of minute fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Bark dark brown, and covered with small closely appressed scales.
Distribution. Dry Oak-woods, valley of the Savannah River, Georgia; Spears Plantation six miles south and Goshen Plantation sixteen miles south of Augusta, Richmond County, near Mayfield, Hancock County, and Bath, Richmond County. Often cultivated, and preserved in gardens for more than a century; not rediscovered as a wild plant until 1913 (L. A. Berckmans); hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts.
3. [Magnolia grandiflora] L. Magnolia.
Magnolia fœtida Sarg.
Leaves elliptic to oblong-obovate or ovate, acute and bluntly pointed or acuminate at apex, cuneate at base, coriaceous, bright green and shining above, more or less densely coated below with rusty tomentum, 5′—8′ long, 2′—3′ wide, with a prominent midrib and primary veins, deciduous in the spring at the end of their second year; petioles stout, rusty-tomentose, 1′—2′ in length. Flowers on stout hoary-tomentose pedicels ½′—1′ long, opening from April or May until July or August, fragrant, 7′—8′ across, the petaloid sepals and 6 or sometimes 9 or 12 petals abruptly narrowed at base, oval or ovate, those of the inner ranks often somewhat acuminate, concave, and coriaceous, 3′—4′ long and 1½′—2′ wide; base of the receptacle and lower part of the filaments bright purple. Fruit ovoid or oval, rusty brown, covered while young with thick lustrous white tomentum, at maturity rusty-tomentose, 3′—4′ long, 1½′—2½′ thick; seeds obovoid or triangular-obovoid, more or less flattened, ½′ long.
A tree, of pyramidal habit, 60°—100° or rarely 120°—135° high, with a tall straight trunk 2°—3° or occasionally 4°—4½° in diameter, rather small spreading branches, and branchlets hoary-tomentose at first, slightly tomentose in their second year, and much roughened by the elevated leaf-scars displaying a marginal row of conspicuous fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Winter-buds pale or rusty-tomentose, the terminal 1′—1½′ in length. Bark ½′—¾′ thick, gray or light brown, and covered with thin appressed scales rarely more than 1′ long. Wood hard, heavy, creamy white, soon turning brown with exposure, hardly distinguishable from the sapwood of 60—80 layers of annual growth; little used except for fuel.
Distribution. Rich moist soil on the borders of river swamps and Pine-barren ponds, or rarely on high rolling hills; coast of North Carolina southward to De Soto County, Florida, extending across the peninsula, and in the neighborhood of the coast through the other Gulf states to the valley of the Brazos River, Texas, ranging inland to central Mississippi and to southern Arkansas, and northward on the bluffs of the lower Mississippi River to the mouth of the Yazoo River, Mississippi; best developed and most abundant on the bluff formation of the lower Mississippi River, and of its largest size in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana.
Largely cultivated as an ornamental tree in all countries of temperate climate; in the eastern United States precariously hardy as far north as Trenton, New Jersey. Numerous varieties, differing in the form of the leaf and in the duration of the flowering period, have appeared in European nurseries; of these, the most distinct is the variety exoniensis Loud., with a rather fastigiate habit and broadly elliptic leaves densely clothed with rusty tomentum on the lower surface; this variety begins to flower when only a few feet high.