MAGNOLIA. 



MAGNOLIACEA. POLYANDRIA POLYGYNIA. 



Named Magnolia by Plumier, in honour of Pierre Magnol, pro- 

 fessor of medicine, prefect of the Botanic Garden at Montpelier, 

 and author of several botanical works. Miller calls the laurel- 

 leaved magnolia, sweet-flowering bay : the gardeners give it the 

 appellation of tulip- tree ; a name also common to the Liriodendron 

 tulipifera. French, magnolier ; Italian, magnolia. 



THE Magnolias are trees; chiefly American, and none 

 European. Their leaves are large ; their flowers axillary, 

 very large and sweet-scented. 



The Great Laurel-leaved Magnolia, Magnolia grandi- 

 Jlora^ in the southern provinces of North America, rises 

 with a straight trunk of two feet or more in diameter, to 

 the height of seventy or eighty feet, or yet higher, di- 

 viding into many spreading branches that form a large 

 regular head. The leaves are nine or ten inches long, 

 and three broad in the middle, of a thick consistence, 

 resembling those of the common laurel, but much 

 larger ; they are of a lucid green on the upper surface, 

 and often of a russet colour beneath : they continue 

 green all the year, falling off only as new ones are pro- 

 duced. The flowers are large, composed of eight or ten 

 petals, narrow at their base, but broad, rounded, and a 

 little waved at their extremities : they spread open very 

 wide, are of a pure white, and have an agreeable odour. 



In its native country, this tree begins to blossom in 

 May, and continues in flower for a long time, so that the 

 woods are perfumed with it the greater part of the 



