THE ROMANCE OF OUR TREES 



most free-growing of its group, and trees raised from 

 the original seeds are now 35 feet tall with broad, 

 pyramidate crowns. This Magnolia first produced 

 flowers in the garden of Professor Sargent, Brookline, 

 Mass., in April, 1899. The blossoms are pure white, 

 cup-shaped, and smaller than those of the Yulan. 

 On young trees the flowers were sparse but with age 

 it has proved to be as floriferous as any other Mag- 

 nolia. 



The first of all Magnolias to open its flowers each 

 spring is the lovely M. stellata, to my mind the most 

 charming of all. It is always a broad, shapely shrub 

 from 10 to 15 feet high and more in diameter; the 

 star-shaped, snowy blossoms are smaller than those of 

 other species but are produced in such profusion as to 

 cover the bush with white. We owe this Magnolia, 

 one of the most beautiful and most satisfactory of 

 hardy spring-flowering shrubs, to Dr. George R. Hall 

 who brought it from Japan in 1862 and gave it to Mr. 

 S. B. Parsons, Flushing, Long Island. It was dis- 

 tributed as M. Halliana and it is a pity that the rule of 

 priority prevents the use of a name which would so 

 worthily commemorate its introducer. In addition 

 to the type there is a pink-flowered form (var. rosea) 

 which makes a delightful companion to it. 



There are in Europe several other Asiatic Mag- 

 nolias which flower before the leaves but only two of 

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