SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



MAGNOLIA. 



Flowee-bud inclosed in a stipular caducous spathe. Flowers perfect, solitary, 

 terminal ; sepals 3 ; petals 6 to 12, in series of 3's ; anthers introrse ; pistils indefinite, 

 nnbrioatcd on an elongated receptacle. Carpels drupaceous-baccate, persistent, opening 

 on the back at maturity. Seeds drupaceous. 



Magnolia, Liniiaeus, Ge7i. 162. - Adanson, Fam. PI. ii. 837. - Meisner, (?e;^ 3. - Gray, Gau III. i. 59.-Ben- 



364. — A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. 281. — Endlleher, Gen. tham & Hooker, (?en. i. 18. — BaUlon, iZ/si;. PA i. 188. 



Trees, or rarely shrubs, witK fleshy roots, ashy gray or bro^, smooth or sometimes scaly, bitter- 

 aromatic bark, and terete branchlets conspicuously marked by large round leaf-scars and narrow stipular 

 rings. Buds terete, acute ; then- scales large membranaceous stipules adnate to the base o£ the stout 

 petioles, deciduous with the unfolding of each successive condupllcate leaf. Leaves alternate, entire, 

 sometimes auriculate, deciduous or sempervirent, feather-veined, often minutely punctate. Flowers sessile 

 or slightly pedunculate, conspicuous, sometimes precocious, often fragrant, white, green, or yellow, rarely 

 purple or rose. Spathe thin, membranaceous, or, when the flower is precocious, thicker and densely 

 covered with wool. Sepals spreading or reflexed, deciduous. Petals imbricated in the bud, hypogy- 

 nous, concave, erect or spreading, deciduous. Stamens indefinite, imbricated in many ranks upon the 

 base of the receptacle, stout, early- deciduous ; filaments much shorter than the adnate introrse two-cefled 

 anthers ; the fleshy connective apiculate. Pistfls densely imbricated on the receptacle ; ovaries fleshy, 

 one-celled ; style short, recurved, stigmatose only on the inner face ; ovules two, collateral, horizontal, 

 anatropous. Fruit a scarlet or rusty brown cone, formed of the coalescent two-seeded carpels. Seeds 

 suspended at maturity by a long thin cord of unroUed spiral vessels contained in the short funiculus 

 and placenta ; testa thick, drupaceous, the outer portion becoming fleshy and at maturity pulpy, bright 

 red or scarlet, the interior crustaceous, grooved along the inner side j tegmen very thin, adherent to the 

 albumen. Embryo minute, at the base of the fleshy homogeneous albumen, its radicle next the hilum ; 

 cotyledons short and spreading. 



The genus Magnolia is now confined to eastern North America, southern Mexico, and eastern and 

 southern Asia. Twenty species are known. Of these, six are North American, with their centre of dis- 

 tribution in the southern Alleghany-mountain region ; two are Mexican ; ^ ten are eastern Asiatic ; ^ one 

 is a native of the mountains of Yun-nan ; ^ and four are Himalayan.* Magnolia once occupied a much 

 larger area of the earth's surface, and its fossil remains are well marked and widely distributed.^ As late 



1 Hemsley, Bat. Biol. Am, Cenl. i. 13. a fine tree with persistent foliage, not unlike Magnolia fatida of 



2 Maximowicz, Bull. Acad. Sci. St. Petersbourg, viii. 507. — the south Atlantic states. 

 Forbes & Hemsley, Jour. Linn. Soc. xxiii. 23. * Hooker f. Fl. Brit. Ind. i. 41. 



8 Magnolia Delavayi, Franchet, PL Delavayance, 33, t. 9, 10 : ^ Saporta, Origine Paleuntologique des Arbres, 2C3. 



