MAGNOLIACEAE 161 



MAGNOLIACEAE. Magnolia Family 



About 10 genera and 80 species, trees and shrubs, natives of 

 North America and Asia. Many are cultivated for ornament. 



MAGNOLIA, Linnaeus. The Magnolias, etc. 



Magnolia grandiflora, L. (M. foctida, Sarg.) 



Magnolia (Loblolly.) 



(Map 1(^ Fig. 45) 



A magnificent evergreen tree, well known throughout the 

 South. Its leaves are the largest of any of our evergreens except 

 the palms and yuccas, but they vary in size on different trees. 

 This variation may be correlated with the fertility of the soil, but 

 it seems to have become more or less fixed, for large and small- 

 leaved forms are sometimes cultivated side by side in the same 

 soil without losing their characteristics. The flowers too are not 

 exceeded in size by anything else in our flora. It blooms from 

 April to June, and ripens its seeds four or five months later. 



Planted for ornament all over the South except in the moun- 

 tains and southern Florida, and said to be hardy as far north as 

 Philadelphia. It also grows very well in California, where the 

 climate differs greatly from that of its native home, in having no 

 rain in summer. Four or five varieties are recognized by horticul- 

 turists. 



Its wood is something like that of its "cousin" the yellow j^op- 

 lar (discussed a few pages farther on). It is not usually abundant 

 enough in any one neighborhood to be an important source of lum- 

 ber, and it is possible that some peo])le would hesitate to destroy 

 such a l)eautiful tree (I never heard of one being cut in Georgia 

 when I was living there 30 to 35 years ago). But now that other 

 kinds of wood are getting scarcer, and good roads and motor 

 trucks make all the forests more accessible, the magnolia's beauty 

 does not save it. Even half a century ago it was being cut for 

 fuel in Mississippi, according to Dr. Mohr (Tenth Census U. S., 

 vol. 9, p. 535). About the same time, or a little later, it was being 

 made into pumps and porch columns at Memphis (largely from 



