370 DECIDUOUS TREES. 



where the soil is deep and fertile. Such facts render it apparent 

 that it is a tree unsuited to those open sites and gravelly soils at 

 the north where the sugar maples and the common chestnut are 

 most beautiful. It seems to us too gross a tree for small grounds. 

 The following species is a more pleasing tree : 



THE HEART-LEAVED MAGNOLIA. M. cordata. We have seen 

 in northern grounds more healthy-looking trees of this variety than 

 of any other. Doctor Kirtland thinks it may be only a variety of 

 the M. acuminata ; but, whether a variety or a species, it is quite 

 distinct in leaves, flowers, and style. It is a smaller and handsomer 

 tree in all respects. Though a native of the Carolinas and Georgia, 

 where it is found principally on the uplands and mountains, it is 

 quite hardy in the Central Park, New York, and fine specimens 

 are growing in private grounds near the Sound and on the Hudson 

 River. Downing says of it : " It blooms in the gardens very young 

 and very abundantly, often producing two crops in a season." The 

 flowers appear in June and July, and occasionally afterwards till 

 frosts. They are yellow, streaked with red, and from three to four 

 inches in diameter. The leaves are smaller, rounder, darker, and 

 more glossy than those of the acuminata, and are disposed to be 

 wavy, which gives a finer play of light upon them. The form of 

 the tree is a true ovate. The foliage is more abundant, and breaks 

 into more pleasing masses than that of the larger-leaved magno- 

 lias. It also keeps a tree-form naturally, while some of the latter 

 are apt to throw up several stems from the heart near the ground. 



In ordinary lawn exposures, this species, we think, will prove 

 only less interesting than the Magnolia macrophylla, on which, 

 as well as on the M. tripetela and M. auriculata, the individual 

 leaves and flowers are so magnificent, that the contours of the 

 trees themselves, however ungainly, and the breaks of light and 

 shade in their heads, are forgotten while observing their remarka- 

 ble details. This heart-leaved magnolia exhibits less striking 

 features, and forms a beautiful connecting-link between the great- 

 leaved magnolias and our exuberantly-foliaged northern trees, 

 which are distinguished by the abundance rather than the size of 

 their leaves. 



