164 ECONOMIC BOTANY OF ALABAMA 



Magnolia glauca, L.* (White, or Sweet) Bay. 



(Map 16) 



Usually a smaller tree than the preceding, with smaller leaves 

 which are white heneath ( the inider surfaces conspicuous from a 

 distance when the leaves are rustled by a breeze), and much smaller 

 flowers. I have seen a specimen three feet in diameter on Luxa- 

 palila Creek in Fayette County, but it is usually less than a foot in 

 diameter and not more than 30 or 40 feet tall ; and in flat pine 

 woods with sour perpetually moist soil it may be only a shrub, 

 blooming when two feet tall. The leaves usually last through the 

 winter, and fall just as the new ones come out in April ; but farther 

 north, where the winters are colder, or in cultivated specimens in 

 richer soils, the tree may be completely bare in winter. A small 

 tree on the University campus, obtained from a northern nursery, 

 loses all its leaves in midwinter, while some in yards in Tuscaloosa, 

 presuiuably brought in from the woods near by, are just as ever- 

 green as the wild ones. The Ijay blooms in late spring, about the 

 same time as the magnolia, and sporadically through the summer. 



It is occasi(jnally cultivated for ornament, but is decidedly in- 

 ferior to .1/. grandiflora. Two varieties have l)een recognized by 

 horticulturists, one of them probably a hybrid. The dried bark 



*In the first edition of Linnaeus's Species Plantarum (1753), which is 

 taken as the starting point of botanical nomenclature, our two evergreen 

 Magnolias were described as varieties (f/laiica and foctida) of one species 

 (M. rirfi'miana) , and some of the deciduous species as other varieties of 

 the same. In the second edition, ten 3'ears later, Linnaeus made them sep- 

 arate species, calling them J/, glauca and M. grandiflora. Some of our 

 nomenclature reformers of a generation ago decided that according to the 

 new rules these species should be called .1/. J'irgiiiiaiia and M. foctida. But 

 a later revision of the rules, which did not allow varietal names to take 

 precedence over specific names, threw out ^1/. foctida and restored the name 

 grandiflora for that species. The name J^'irgiiiiaiia was still retained for 

 the bay, however, for no other reason than because that happened to be the 

 first of the varieties described under that specific name (which Linnaeus 

 later discarded). It seems more logical, and less confusing, to follow Lin- 

 naeus's intentions and all 19th century usage, and call the bay M. glauca, 

 regardless of a strict application of the rules. 



The Alabama representatives of this species, or most of them, have 

 been separated from the northern form by Prof. Sargent, under the name 

 of Magnolia Virginiana australis, which is said to differ in having silky 

 pubescence on the branchlets and pedicels. It has not yet been determined 

 whether the two forms intergrade or overlap, or have entirely separate 

 ranges ; or whether any of the Alabama trees are referable to the northern 

 form. 



