70 Original Plant of the Exmouth Magnolia, 



having gone down deeper than 20 ft. ; but to that depth it is all 

 sandy loam. All the rest of our ground has a subsoil of strong 

 clay. 



Owing to the wall against which the trees are planted being 

 rather short, they have not room to spread out as they otherwise 

 would do. I should think that M. conspicua and Soulangea;^^ 

 would extend, each of them, 3 ft. more each way. The probable 

 height, at ten years old, of all the trees was rather more than 

 one half the present height. 



The trees were planted by my father in the autumn pre- 

 ceding the severe frost in 1814; and, from that time to the pre- 

 sent, they have had no protection whatever from the severity of 

 the weather, notwithstanding the wall is only 15 ft. 6 in. high, 

 and all the parts of the trees that are above it, supported by an 

 iron trellis, are exposed to the wind and weather from all 

 quarters. 



It is worthy of notice, that, a few years previously to the time 

 of these trees being planted out, the M. macrophylla was, in 

 several places, kept in the plant stove ; from that it was brought 

 into the green-house ; subsequently, it was planted in the open 

 air ; and is now one of the many very beautiful trees that adorn 

 our gardens. 



Harringay Home, Dec. 27. 1834. 



Art. VI. The History of the original Plant of the Exmoulh Mag- 

 nolia, in the Garden of Sir John Colliton, in Exmouth. Communi- 

 cated by Mr. R. Glendinning, Gardener to Lord Rolle. 



Having written to various persons in Devonshire, and, 

 among others, to Mr. Glendinning, to know whether this cele- 

 brated plant of the Magnolm grandiflora var. exoniensis, men- 

 tioned by Miller in 1730, was the oldest tree of the kind in 

 England, we received the following notice, procured by Mr. 

 Glendinning through the kindness of Lady Rolle : — 



The hiformation of Thomas Tupman respecting the original 

 Plant of the Exmonth Magnolia. — He says, that his father was 

 gardener to Sir Francis Drake ; that soon after the death of 

 Sir J. Colliton, who lived at Exmouth, he (Tupman's father) 

 left his place, and rented the garden, in which the magnolia tree 

 grew, of Mr. Zorn (the then proprietor), with an agreement that 

 he was to make layers of the tree at half a guinea a plant. Zorn 

 made five guineas. 



The garden afterwards came into the hands of a Mr. Davis, 

 a mercer, of Exeter. This was about forty years ago (1794). 

 Mr. Davis sent a labouring man, named Skinner, to cut down 



