Distribution. Sheltered valleys in deep rich soil; nowhere common, and growing generally in isolated groups of a few individuals; Piedmont region of central North Carolina to middle and western Florida, southern Alabama, southern and northeastern Mississippi to the valley of the Green River, Kentucky; in eastern and western Louisiana; probably most abundant in south-central Mississippi.
Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental tree in the eastern states, and in the temperate countries of Europe; hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts.
7. [Magnolia Fraseri] Walt. Mountain Magnolia. Long-leaved Cucumber-tree.
Leaves obovate-spatulate, acute or bluntly pointed at apex, cordate and conspicuously auriculate at base, bright green and often marked on the upper surface when young with red along the principal veins, glabrous, 10′—12′ long, 6′—7′ wide, or on vigorous young plants sometimes of twice that size; falling in the autumn without change of color; petioles slender, 3′—4′ in length. Flowers on stout glabrous pedicels covered with a glaucous bloom and 1′—1½′ long, pale yellow, sweet scented, 8′—10′ across; sepals narrowly obovate, rounded at apex, 4′—5′ long, deciduous almost immediately after the opening of the bud, shorter than the 6 or 9 obovate acuminate membranaceous spreading petals contracted below the middle, those of the inner rows narrower and conspicuously narrowed below. Fruit oblong, glabrous, bright rose-red when fully ripe, 4′—5′ long, 1½′—2′ thick, the mature carpels ending in long subulate persistent tips; seeds obovoid, compressed, ⅝′ long.
A tree, 30°—40° high, with a straight or inclining trunk 12′—18′ in diameter, often undivided for half its length or separating at the ground into a number of stout diverging stems, regular wide-spreading or more or less contorted and erect branches, and stout brittle branchlets soon becoming bright red-brown, lustrous, marked by numerous minute pale lenticels and in their first winter by the low horizontal leaf-scars with crowded compressed fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and grayish in their second year. Winter-buds: terminal, glabrous, purple, 1½′—2′ long, ½′ thick; axillary, minute and obtuse. Bark rarely more than ⅓′ thick, dark brown, smooth, covered by small excrescences, or on old trees broken into minute scales. Wood light, soft, close-grained, not strong, light brown, with thick creamy white sapwood of 30—40 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Valleys of the streams of the southern Appalachian Mountains from southwestern Virginia and northeastern Kentucky to northern Georgia; in northern Alabama and in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana (Laurel Hill, R. S. Cocks); in South Carolina eastward to the neighborhood of Aiken, Aiken County; probably most abundant and of largest size on the upper waters of the Savannah River in South Carolina up to altitudes of 4000°.
Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern states, and in the temperate countries of Europe; hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts.
8. [Magnolia pyramidata] Pursh.
