The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree 



New York; isolated stations in Suffolk County, Long Island, and 

 near Gloucester, Massachusetts. Uses: Valuable ornamental 

 tree or shrub in American and European gardens. Branches 

 sold for decoration of houses and churches. Cut flowers hawked 

 on city streets. Wood used for broom handles and for small 

 wooden utensils. 



The swamp bay is remarkable for its range, which extends 

 from Gloucester, Massachusetts, to Florida, and westward to lower 

 Arkansas and the Trinity River in Texas. On the rich "ham- 

 mocks" elevated above the cypress swamps and pine forests of 

 middle Florida this magnolia is a tree of slender trunk but often 

 50 to 75 feet high. Leaves, flowers and fruit proclaim it a mag- 

 nolia. The smooth, silvery linings distinguish the leaves from 

 those of the other evergreen magnolia. The small globular 

 flowers and the smooth, diminutive fruits further identify it. 

 From Bay Biscayne northward along the coast, following the pine 

 barrens and swamp borders, this fugitive species becomes gradually 

 dwarfed and its leaves become deciduous. In New Jersey it is 

 a shrub, vigorous and tropical looking, for the region, but very 

 unlike the sub-tropical representatives of the species. On Long 

 Island there is a station of this bay in Suffolk County. A few 

 remaining plants are known still to exist in a swamp near Glouces- 

 ter, Massachusetts, the only place north of the latitude of New 

 York which has any recollection of native magnolias growing 

 wild near by. I wandered through that Gloucester swamp, just 

 east of the station named Magnolia, in a vain quest for the remnant 

 of the colony. I was told that the only person who knew where 

 the survivors grew was "the Hermit," who formerly made his 

 living by digging up young plants and selling them. Thrifty 

 garden specimens in Gloucester and other points on Cape Ann 

 came origiually out of this swamp. The colony is now practically 

 extinct. 



Swamp bay flowers are globular and small for a magnolia — 

 only two or three inches across — but delightfully fragrant. 



One of the sights on the streets of Philadelphia and New 

 York in May is the street Arab hawking the blossom clusters. A 

 flower with a half-open bud in its whorl of leaves costs ten cents. 

 An absurd custom prevails among these flower venders. They 

 "open" the globular blossoms by springing back the curved 

 petals. The finest flowers are produced by cutting back 



