26 



FAMILIAR TREES AND THEIR LEAVES. 



Gray says they are seldom cordate * (heart-shaped at 



the base). The yellow flowers are often slightly 



streaked with red. The tree 



grows from 20 to 50 feet high. 



The great-leaved 

 Great-leaved 



Magnolia. magnolia is a 



Magnolia Southern tree, 



macrophylla. . . , -. 



with huge, deep- 

 green leaves (sometimes not less 

 than thirty inches long) clus- 

 tered at the summit of the branches ; 

 they are also woolly-white beneath, 

 and are narrowed down to two small 

 scallops at the base. The bell-shaped 

 flowers are truly Brobdingnagian, for 

 they measure fully eight and even 

 twelve inches across. They are mildly 

 fragrant, and are cream-white, of a very 

 soft tone, with a dull pinkish spot at the 

 base of the petal. The tree grows from 30 to 50 

 feet high, and is found in its wild state from Ken- 

 tucky and North Carolina southward. It is culti- 

 vated as far north as Boston, where, in Jamaica 

 Plain, one of the suburbs, there are two beautiful 



* The species name Magnolia cordata was given it by the 

 younger Michaux ; but Prof. Sargent considers this magnolia a 

 variety of M. acuminata. 



Magnolia 

 macrophylla 



