MAGNOLIACE^ 



321 



brownish, pubescent, ^'-\' long. Bark generally less than ^' thick, smooth, light 

 gray, divided on the surface into minute scales. "Wood hard, close-grained, light, 

 not strong, light brown, with thick light yellow sapwood of about 40 layers of annual 

 growth. 



Distribution. Sheltered valleys in deep rich soil; nowhere common, and grow- 

 ing generally in isolated groups of a few individuals in the region about the base of 



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the southern Alleghany Mountains from North Carolina and southeastern Kentucky 

 to middle and western Florida, southern Alabama, northern Mississippi, and the 

 valley of the Pearl River, Louisiana, and in central Arkansas. 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental tree in the eastern states, and in the 

 temperate countries of Europe; hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts. 



5. Magnolia tripetala, L. Umbrella-tree. Elkwood. 



Leaves obovate-lanceolate, narrowed at the ends, acute or bluntly pointed at the 

 apex, when they unfold nearly glabrous above, covered below with thick silky 

 caducous tomentum, at maturity membranaceous, glabrous, 18'-20' long, 8'-10' 

 wide, with thick prominent midribs and numerous slender primary veins, falling 

 in the autumn with little change of color; their petioles stout, V-1^' long. Flo"wers 

 on slender glabrous peduncles covered with a glaucous bloom and 2'-2^' long, cup- 

 shaped, creamy white, 4'-5' deep; sepals narrowly obovate, 5'-6' long, 1^', wide, 

 thin, light green, becoming reflexed; petals 6 or 9, concave, coriaceous, ovate, short- 

 pointed, erect, those of the outer row 45' long and sometimes 2' wide, much longer 

 and broader than those of the inner rows; filaments bright purple. Fruit ovate, 

 glabrous, 2^'-4' long, rose color when fully ripe; seeds obovoid, ^' long. 



A tree, 30 40 high, with a straight or often inclining trunk rarely more than 18' 

 in diameter, stout irregularly developed contorted branches wide-spreading nearly 

 at right angles with the stem or turning up toward the ends and growing parallel 

 with it, and stout brittle branchlets green during their first season, becoming in their 

 first winter bright reddish brown, very lustrous, and marked by occasional minute 

 scattered pale lenticels, and by the large oval horizontal slightly raised leaf-scars, 

 with scattered fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and brown during their second and gray 

 during their third season; generally much smaller, sometimes surrounded by several 

 stems springing from near the base of the trunk and growing into a large bush 



