HAGNOLIACE/E. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



lo 



) 



MAGNOLIA FRASERI. 



Mountain Magnolia, Long Leaved Cucumber Tree, 



Leaves obovatc-spatulatc, auriculate at the base. Point of the carpel of fruit 



long and recux^ved. 



Magnolia Fraseri, "Walter, FL Car, 159, t. — Torrey & 

 Gray, FL N. Am, i, 43. ^ Dietrich, Syn. iii. 308, — 

 Chapmaiij FL 14, — Curtis, Geolog. Surv. N. Car. 1860, 

 iii. 68. — Koch, J)endr,\, 372, — Sargent, Forest Trees 

 JST. Am, 10th Census U, S, ix. 22. — -Watson & Coulter^ 

 Grai/s Man, ed, 6, 50. 



M. auricnlata, Lamarck, DicL iii, 673, — Bartram, Trav, 

 339, ■^— "Willdenowj S'peo, ii, 1258, — Michaux, FL Bor- 

 Atn, i- 328, — Nouveait DiiJutmel^ ii. 222. — Desfontainesj 

 Hist, Arh- ]i, 5, — IMicliaux f, IlisL Arh, Am. iii, 94^ t. 

 6, — Andrews, Bot, Hep. ix. t, 573. — - Bot. Mag. t, 

 1200. — Cuhicrcs, Mem. Magn. t, — Piirsh, FL Am. Sept, 

 ii- 382, — ^^lttal], Gen, i\, 18, -De Candolle, Syst, i- 



454; Prodr, I 80. — Hajiie, Dendr, 7^^. 117- — ElUott, 

 Sk, ii, 39.— Rafiiiesque, Med. Bot, ii, 32. — Audubon, 

 Birds, t. 38. — Don, Gen, Syst I 83. -^ Spaeli, Hist. Veg. 

 vii, 477. — Loudouj Arh, Brit, i. 276, t, — Jaumo St. Ili- 

 laire, Flore et Pomoney v- t. 453. 



M, pyramidata, Pursh, FL Am, Sept, ii. 382, — De Can- 

 dolle, SijsL i. 454; Prod^r. i, 80. — Ilayne, Deyndr. FL 

 117. — Lindley, BoL Reg, x, t. 407, — Loddiges, Bot, Cab- 

 t 1092,— Bafinesque, Med, BoL ii. 33, — Don, Geti, 

 SgsL I 83, — Loudon, Arb. Brit. I 277, t, — Scringe, FL 

 Jard, iii, 230- 



M, auricularis, Salisbury, Parad, Loud, i. t, 43, — Kerncr, 

 Sort, t 360, 



A treBj thirty to forty feet higlij -with a straight or inclining trunk twelve or eighteen inches in 

 diameter, often undivided for half its length or separated at the ground into a number of stout shruh- 

 like diverging steins. Tlie branches are regular and wide-spreading, or they are contorted or turned 

 up towards the extremity. The bark o£ the trunk rarely exceeds a third o£ an inch in thickness ; it is 

 dark brown, smooth, covered with small excrescences, or on old individuals broken into minute scales. 

 The bark of the stout brittle branchlets is bright red-brown, turning gray during their third season, and 

 marked with numerous small white dots. The large winter-buds are purple. The leaves are membra- 

 naceous, obovate-spatulate, pointed, cordate and conspicuously auriculate at the base, and borne on 

 slender petioles three or four inches long. They are bright green, often marked on the upper surface, 

 when young, with red along the principal veins, glabrous, ten or twelve niches long and six or seven 

 inches broad, or, on vigorous young plants, sometimes twice that size. The creamy white sweetly 

 scented flowers, eight or nine inches across when expanded, appear in May or June. The sepals, which 

 fall almost immediately after the opening of the bud, are narrowly obovate, rounded at the extremity, 

 four or five inches long, and shorter than the six or nine obovate acuminate membranaceous spreading 

 petals, which are contracted below the middle, those of the inner rows being narrower and conspicu- 

 ously unguiculate. The fruit is oblong, four or five inches in length, one and a half to two inches 

 broad, bright rose-red when fully ripe, and distinguished by the long persistent subulate points crown- 

 ing the carpels, which are bright yellow on the inner surface. 



Magnolia Fraseri is the least widely distributed of the American MagnoHas. The northern limit 

 of its range is in the mountains of southwestern Virginia ; it extends southward to the valley of the Chat- 

 tahoochee River in western Florida, and to southern Alabama, and westward through east Tennessee 

 and northern Mississippi to the valley of the Pearl River. It grows in great abundance on the lower 

 slopes of the high Alleghany Mountains, and of the Blue Ridge in North and South Carolina at an 

 elevation of two to three thousand feet above the sea-level; while at lower elevations and remote from 

 the mountains it is found only occasionally in isolated situations. Its real home is in the valleys of the 

 mountain streams which flow from the Blue Ridge to form the principal tributaries of the Savannah, 

 and from the slopes of the Black and the Big Smoky Mountains. It is a conspicuous feature in these 



