106 TREES 



The finest flowers are borne on strong young shoots. 

 The florists collect and handle them with extreme care. 

 Much of the swamp land now useless along the Atlantic 

 seaboard could be profitably planted to this magnoHa, for 

 the florist trade alone. The flowers bloom slowly through 

 a period of several weeks. The enterprising owner of tracts 

 planted to swamp bay could reap two harvests a year, al- 

 most from the first season: the flowers in spring and the 

 leafy shoots for holiday decorations. In the South the 

 leaves are evergreen. 



The Large-leaved Cucumber Tree 



M. macrophylla, Michx. 



The large-leaved cucumber tree exceeds all other magno- 

 lias in the size of its leaves and flowers. In fact, no tree out- 

 side the tropics can match it, for its blades are almost a yard 

 in length. The flowers are great white bowls, sometimes a 

 foot across, made of six white waxy petals, much broader 

 than the three protecting sepals outside. The inner petals 

 have purple spots at the base. The fruits are almost 

 globular, two to three inches long, turning red as they 

 mature, equally showy when the scarlet seeds dangle from 

 the open follicles. 



These trees are at home in fertile valleys among the foot- 

 hills of the Alleghanies, from North Carolina to middle 

 Florida, and west to central Arkansas. Their range is not 

 continuous. They occur in scattered groups that have 

 come from seed. 



The horticulturist has greatly aided nature in the spread 

 of this tree in this country and in Europe, where its flowers 

 and leaves attract universal attention. The mistake 



