MAGNOLIACE^ 



347 



Distribution. Deep swamps; Magnolia, Essex County, Massachusetts, Long Island, 

 New York, and southward from New Jersey generally in the neighborhood of the coast to 

 southeastern Virginia and occasionally in North and South Carolina and Georgia; in Penn- 

 sylvania as far west as the neighborhood of Chambersburg, Franklin County. In the 

 southern states usually replaced by the var. australis Sarg., differing in the thick silky white 

 pubescence on the pedicels and branchlets. Leaves persistent without change of color 



Fig. 3 13 



until spring, elliptic to ovate, oblong-obovate or rarely lanceolate, l'-4' wide; petioles 

 puberulous, pubescent or tomentose. 



A tree, 60-90 high, with a tall straight trunk occasionally 3 in diameter, small short 

 branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and branchlets usually becoming glabrous 

 in their second year; in southern Florida often much smaller and on the Everglade Keys 

 shrubby, and generally not more than 10 tall. Wood soft, light brown tinged with red, 

 with thick creamy white sap wood of 90-100 layers of annual growth; used in the southern 

 states in the manufacture of broom handles and other articles of woodenware. 



Distribution. Borders of Pine-barren ponds, in shallow swamps and on rich hummocks 

 usually in the neighborhood of the coast; swamps of the lower Cape Fear River near Wil- 

 mington, New Hanover County, North Carolina, to southern Florida; common in the 

 interior of the Florida peninsula, and westward to the valley of the Nueces River, Texas; 

 ranging inland to Cuthbert, Randolph County, western Georgia, to Tuskegee and Selma, 

 Alabama, Tishomingo County, northeastern Mississippi, and to Winn and Natchitoches 

 Parishes, western Louisiana; less abundant west of the Mississippi River than eastward. 



The northern form is often cultivated as a garden plant in the eastern states and in 

 Europe. 



X Magnolia major or Thompsoniana, a probable hybrid between Magnolia virginiana 

 and Magnolia tripetala, raised in an English nursery a century ago, and still a favorite 

 garden plant, is intermediate in character between these species. 



5. Magnolia tripetala L. Umbrella-tree. Elkwood. 



Leaves obovate-lanceolate, narrowed at the ends, acute or bluntly pointed at apex, when 

 they unfold nearly glabrous above, covered below with thick silky caducous tomentum, 

 at maturity membranaceous, glabrous, 18'-20' long, 8'-10' wide, with a thick prominent 

 midrib and numerous slender primary veins; falling in the autumn with little change of 

 color; petioles stout, I'-l^' in length. Flowers on slender glabrous pedicles covered with 

 a glaucous bloom and 2'-2|' long, cup-shaped, white; sepals narrowly obovate, 5'-6' long, 



