318 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



ing on the branches with little change of color until the appearance of the new leaves 

 in the spring; their petioles slender, ^'-f long. Flo^wers on slender glabrous pe- 

 duncles ^'-f ' 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 

 oval, dark red, glabrous, 2' long and ^' broad ; seeds obovoid, oval, or suborbicular, 

 much flattened, ^ long. 



A slender tree, 50-70 high, with a trunk 2-3^ 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; often much 

 smaller, and at the north reduced to a low shrub. Winter-buds covered with fine 

 silky pubescence, the terminal ^'-^' long. Wood soft, light brown tinged with red, 

 with thick creamy white sapwood of 90-100 layers of annual growth; occasionally 

 used in the southern states in the manufacture of broom handles and other articles 

 of woodenvvare. 



Distribution. At the north in deep wet swamps, southward along the borders of 

 Pine-barren ponds and in shallow swamps; Magnolia, Essex County, Massachusetts, 



r'^-^JJ 



Suffolk County, Long Island, and southward from New Jersey generally near the 

 coast to the shores of Bay Biscayne and Tampa Bay, Florida, in Pennsylvania 

 ranging inland to Franklin County, and through the Gulf states to southwestern 

 Arkansas and the valley of the Trinity River, Texas; most abundant and of its 

 largest size in the interior of the Florida peninsula on fertile hummocks rising above 

 the level of the Pine-lands. 



Often cultivated as a garden plant in the eastern states and in Europe. Magnolia 

 glauca longifolia with lanceolate leaves, and a blooming period extending through 

 two or three months, is probably of garden origin. Magnolia major or Thompso- 

 niana, a probable hybrid between Magnolia glauca and Magnolia tripetala, raised in 

 an English nursery a century ago, and still a favorite garden plant, is intermediate 

 in character between these species. 



