350 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



rounded at apex, 4'-5' long, deciduous almost immediately after the opening of the 

 bud, shorter than the 6 or 9 obovate acuminate membranaceous spreading petals con- 

 tracted below the middle, those of the inner rows narrower and conspicuously narrowed 

 below. Fruit oblong, glabrous, bright rose-red when fully ripe, 4'-5' long, l^'-2' thick, 

 the mature carpels ending in long subulate persistent tips; seeds obovoid, compressed, f 

 long. 



A tree, 30-40 high, with a straight or inclining trunk 12'-18' in diameter, often undi- 

 vided for half its length or separating at the ground into a number of stout diverging 

 stems, regular wide-spreading or more or less contorted and erect branches, and stout 

 brittle branchlets soon becoming bright red-brown, lustrous, marked by numerous minute 

 pale lenticels and in their first winter by the low horizontal leaf-scars with crowded com- 

 pressed fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and grayish in their second year. Winter-buds: ter- 



Fig. 316 



tninal, glabrous, purple, l'-2' long, ' thick; axillary, minute and obtuse. Bark rarely 

 more than \' thick, dark brown, smooth, covered by small excrescences, or on old trees 

 broken into minute scales. Wood light, soft, close-grained, not strong, light brown, with 

 thick creamy white sap wood of 30-40 layers of annual growth. 



Distribution. Valleys of the streams of the southern Appalachian Mountains from south- 

 western Virginia and northeastern Kentucky to northern Georgia; in northern Alabama 

 and in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana (Laurel Hill, R. S. Cocks) ; in South Carolina east- 

 ward to the neighborhood of Aiken, Aiken County; probably most abundant and of largest 

 size on the upper waters of the Savannah River in South Carolina up to altitudes of 4000. 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern states, and in the temper- 

 ate countries of Europe; hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts. 



8. Magnolia pyramidata Pursh. 



Leaves obovate-spatulate, the apex usually abruptly narrow ed into a short blunt point, 

 auriculate at base, with more or less spreading lobes, thin, glabrous, light yellow-green 

 on the upper, pale and glaucous on the lower surface, particularly while young, 5|'-8^' 

 long, from 3i'-4^' wide, with a slender yellow midrib, numerous slender forked primary 

 veins and conspicuously reticulate veinlets; petioles slender, 1|'-2|' in length. Flowers 

 creamy white, 3|'-4' across when fully expanded; sepals oblong-obovate, abruptly nar- 

 rowed to the short-pointed apex, much shorter than the oblong-acuminate petals grad- 

 ually narrowed from near the middle to the base. Fruit oblong, 2'-2^ long, bright rose 



