Handbook of Tkkks of the Nobtiiekn States and Canada. 211 



The Fraser Magnolia is never a very large 

 tree. It attains the lici-lit of from 30 to 40 

 ft., and its trunk, often crooked anil leaning, 

 is rarely more than 12 or 18 in, in diameter, 

 vested in a gray-brown smootliish bark. With 

 few large branches it forms a wide-topped 

 often iiTegular licad. and frt'(|iii'ntly sends up 

 two or more trunks from a single base. It 

 is quite an abundant tree on the southern 

 slopes of the Alleghanies at an altitude of 

 from 2000 to 3000 ft. where it may be found 

 leaning over the turbulant mountain streams 

 in company witii tlie Sorrel-trce, Rhododen- 

 drons, Witch Hazel, Silver-bell Tree, Black 

 Birch, Yellow Buckeye, etc. It ranges north- 

 ward among the mountains into \ irginia, 

 where, however, it is far less abundant. Not 

 as hardy as most of the other IVIagnolias, it 

 is not as extensively planted for ornamental 

 purposes, excepting in the Southern and Mid- 

 dle States where it is planted as a valuable 

 ornamental tree. 



Its wood is light, a cubic foot when abso- 

 lutely dry weighing 31.18 lbs., soft and easily 

 worked, 1 



Leaves deciduous, clustered at the ends of the 

 branchlets, obovate-spatulate, aurlculate at !)as(>. 

 acute or obtuse at apex, glabrous dark green 

 above, paler beneath ; buds glabrous, purplish 

 grpon. Flnu-rr.f white, frasrant, 8-10 In, across ; 

 sopals early dociduous : petals G-9, spreading, 

 obovato-spatulato, l(ini;<'r than the sepals and those 

 of the oviter rank larger and In-oader than those 

 of the inner. Fruit oblong, glabrous, 3-4 in, long, 

 the carpels with long curved beaks ; seed com- 



1, A. W., XI, 251. 



