CHAPTER XVI 



The Magnolia and Tulip-Tree 



Both of these famihar trees belong to the magnolia family, and 

 although we are not here concerned with the other members of 

 this family they exhibit much that is of interest to the student of 

 geographical distribution and I do not think that any family of 

 trees better illustrates the main outlines of the general history of 

 a large number of tree types. 



The magnolia family at the present time contains 2 genera 

 which are confined to the southeastern Asiatic region (Kadsura, 

 Michelia), and one that is limited to the island of New Caledonia 

 (Zygogynum). The other 5 genera which round out the family, 

 namely: Magnolia, Liriodendron, Schizandra, Illicium, and Drimys, 

 are each divided between the Orient and the Occident. All of 

 these except Liriodendron have more than a single species in both 

 regions. Magnolia and Liriodendron are the most northern, 

 Schizandra and Illicium are more southerly and overlap part of 

 the range of the preceding two genera, Taulauma is tropical, and 

 Drimys goes farthest southward in both hemispheres and does 

 not reach the North Temperate Zone at all, extending southward 

 to Australia and New Zealand in the Orient, and to southern Chile 

 in the Occident, and showing moreover a most primitive type ot 

 wood that is entirely without the larger ducts or pores that are so 

 characteristic of all but a very few of the higher plants. 



No family is more obviously of northern origin, none is better 

 represented in the forests floras of Upper Cretaceous times through- 

 out the northern lands, or better exhibits the southward extension 

 so characteristic of many other types as the pressure of plant 

 populations behind them and the availability of suitable land 

 routes to the southward permitted. Drimys, the most primitive 

 in its anatomy, is today found farthest from its original home. 

 Unfortunately the geological history of this genus is practically 



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