THE MAGNOLIA TRIBE. 7 



forests it grows as much as ninety feet high, which is 

 as high as the hirgest tree you ever saw in this 

 country, and much higher than any even of the beau- 

 tifiil old elms that are scattered about in the park 

 before you. A specimen of this size is described by 

 a French Botanist as surpassing all other trees, " par 

 son port majestueux, son superbe feuillage, et ses 

 fleurs magnifiques." In this country it is too delicate 

 to endure the blasts of our bitter winters, without 

 some protection ; but, as you see, it is very happy 

 beneath the shelter of a wall, and pays no attention to 

 the bonds with which it is secured to its prison. 

 Beautiful as are its huge goblet-shaped blossoms, and 

 surpassingly delicate as its buds of polished alabaster, 

 it wants the rich perfume of many of its kindred. 

 There is the glaucous Magnolia with smaller flowers, 

 and leaves having a blueish bloom beneath them, by 

 which nature points it out to the gatherers of the 

 bark that cures the fevers so frequent in the un- 

 healthy swamps where it delights to grow ; and the 

 long -leaved Cucumber-tree (Magnolia auriculata), so 

 called because its leaves taste like Cucumber, with its 

 spreading foliage, which has given it and some others 

 the name of Umbrella trees ; and the long-leaved 

 Umbrella tree (Massnolia macrophylla), whose leaves 

 are sometimes three feet long; these are species 

 whose delicate cup-shaped flowers fill the air with 

 their perfume. It is, however, in the East and not 

 in the West that the Magnolia tribe has its fragrance 

 most elaborated. In the dwarf Talauina of the 

 Chinese (Magnolia pumila), with its yellow and brown 



