MAGNOLIACE.E 



323 



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

 undivided for half its length or separating at the ground into a number of stout diver- 

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

 stout brittle branchlets soon becoming bright red-brown, lustrous, marked by numer- 

 ous minute pale lenticels and in their first winter by the low horizontal leaf-scars 

 with crowded compressed fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and grayish in their second 

 year. Winter-buds: terminal, glabrous, purple, l^'-2' long, ^ wide; 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 sapwood of 30-40 

 layers of annual growth. 



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

 southwestern Virginia to northern Georgia and Alabama, eastern Tennessee and north- 

 ern Mississippi; probably most abundant and of its largest size on the upper waters of 

 the Savannah River in South Carolina. 



Often cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern states, and occasionally in 

 the temperate countries of Europe; hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts. 



7. Magnolia pyramidata, Pursh. 



Leaves obovate-spatulate, the apex usually abruptly narrowed into a short blunt 

 point, auriculate at the 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 3^'-4^' wide, with slender yellow midribs, numerous slender 

 forked primary veins and conspicuously reticulate veinlets; their petioles slender, 1^'- 

 2^' in length. Flowers creamy white, .'^'-4' in diameter when fully expanded; sepals 

 oblong-obovate, abruptly narrowed to the short pointed apex, much shorter than the 

 oblong-acuminate petals gradually narrowed from near the middle to the base. Fruit 

 oblong, 2'-2^' long, bright rose color, the mature carpels ending in short incurved 

 persistent tips; seeds ovate, compressed. 



A slender tree, 20-30 high, with ascending branches, slender branchlets bright 

 red-brown and marked by small pale lenticels and by the small low oval leaf-scars, 

 with many crowded fibro-vascular bundle-scars, later becoming ashy gray. 



