4. [Magnolia virginiana] L. Sweet Bay. Swamp Bay.
Magnolia glauca L.
Leaves oblong or elliptic and obtuse or oblong-lanceolate, covered when they unfold with long white silky deciduous hairs, at maturity bright green, lustrous and glabrous on the upper surface, finely pubescent and pale or nearly white on the lower surface, 4′—6′ long, 1½′—3′ wide, with a conspicuous midrib and primary veins; falling in the north late in November and in early winter, at the south remaining on the branches with little change of color until the appearance of the new leaves in the spring; petioles slender, ½′—¾′ in length. Flowers on slender glabrous pedicels ½′—¾′ long, creamy white, fragrant, globular, 2′—3′ across, continuing to open during several weeks in spring and early summer; sepals membranaceous, obtuse, concave, shorter than the 9—12, obovate often short-pointed concave petals. Fruit ellipsoidal, dark red, glabrous, 2′ long and ½′ thick; seeds obovoid, oval, or suborbicular, much flattened, ¼′ in length.
A slender tree, 20°—30° high, with a trunk rarely more than 15′—20′ in diameter, with small mostly erect ultimately spreading branches and slender bright green branchlets hoary-pubescent when they first appear, soon glabrous, marked by narrow horizontal pale lenticels, gradually turning bright red-brown in their second summer; usually a low shrub. Winter-buds covered with fine silky pubescence, the terminal ½′—¾′ long.
Distribution. Deep swamps; Magnolia, Essex County, Massachusetts, Long Island, New York, and southward from New Jersey generally in the neighborhood of the coast to southeastern Virginia and occasionally in North and South Carolina and Georgia; in Pennsylvania as far west as the neighborhood of Chambersburg, Franklin County. In the southern states usually replaced by the var. australis Sarg., differing in the thick silky white pubescence on the pedicels and branchlets. Leaves persistent without change of color until spring, elliptic to ovate, oblong-obovate or rarely lanceolate, 1′—4′ wide; petioles puberulous, pubescent or tomentose.
A tree, 60°—90° high, with a tall straight trunk occasionally 3° in diameter, small short branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and branchlets usually becoming glabrous in their second year; in southern Florida often much smaller and on the Everglade Keys shrubby, and generally not more than 10° tall. Wood soft, light brown tinged with red, with thick creamy white sapwood of 90—100 layers of annual growth; used in the southern states in the manufacture of broom handles and other articles of wooden ware.
Distribution. Borders of Pine-barren ponds, in shallow swamps and on rich hummocks usually in the neighborhood of the coast; swamps of the lower Cape Fear River near Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina, to southern Florida; common in the interior of the Florida peninsula, and westward to the valley of the Nueces River, Texas; ranging inland to Cuthbert, Randolph County, western Georgia, to Tuskegee and Selma, Alabama, Tishomingo County, northeastern Mississippi, and to Winn and Natchitoches Parishes, western Louisiana; less abundant west of the Mississippi River than eastward.
The northern form is often cultivated as a garden plant in the eastern states and in Europe.
× Magnolia major or Thompsoniana, a probable hybrid between Magnolia virginiana and Magnolia tripetala, raised in an English nursery a century ago, and still a favorite garden plant, is intermediate in character between these species.