DENDROLOGY. 211 



which embraces an extent of 2000 miles. At Charleston, in 

 South Carolina, and in its vicinity, this tree is commonly called 

 Large Magnolia ; but it is more generally known in the country 

 by the name of Big Laurel. The French of Louisiana call it 

 Laurier Tulipier. It grows only in cool and shady places, 

 where the soil, composed of brown mould, is loose, deep and 

 fertile. These tracts lie contiguous to the great swamps, which 

 are found on the borders of the rivers and in the midst of the 

 pine-barrens, or form themselves a part of these swamps ; but they 

 are never seen in the long and narrow marshes, called branch 

 swamps, which traverse the barrens in every direction, and in 

 which the miry soil is shallow, with a bed of white, quartzous 

 sand beneath. 



The big laurel claims a place among the largest trees of the 

 United States. It sometimes, though rarely, reaches 90 feet in 

 height, and two or three feet in diameter ; but its ordinary 

 stature is from 60 to TO feet. Its trunk is nearly straight, 

 covered with a smooth grayish bark, resembling that of the beech, 

 and its summit nearly in the shape of a regular pyramid. Its 

 leaves are entire, oval, sometimes acuminate antl at others obtuse 

 at the summit, six or eight inches long, and borne by short 

 petioles. They are evergreen, thick, coriaceous, and very- 

 brilliant on the upper surface. The flowers are white, of an 

 agreeable odor, and from seven to twelve inches broad. They 

 are larger than those of any other tree of the American forests, and 

 on detached trees they are commonly very numerous. Blooming 

 in the midst of rich foliage, they produce so fine an effect, that 

 those who have seen the tree on its native soil agree in consider- 

 ing it as one of the most beautiful productions of the vegetable 

 kingdom. In Carolina, its flowers put forth in the month of 

 May, and are succeeded by fleshy, oval cones, about four inches 

 in length, which are composed of a great number of cells. At 

 the age of maturity, which is about the first of October, they 

 open longitudinally, showing two or three seeds of a vivid red. 

 The seeds soon after quit their cells, and for some days remain 

 suspended without, each by a white filament attached to the 

 bottom of the cell. The red, pulpy substance, which surrounds 



