MAGNOLIA FAMILY 
minal, cream-white blossoms appear in May. They are from 
eight to ten inches across and exhale a disagreeable odor. 
The name ¢ripetala refers to the three petaloid sepals. 
The Magnolia shrubs found in northern gardens whose 
great white or pink flowers appear before the leaves are of 
Chinese or Japanese origin. 
The science of Paleobotany is fragmentary as yet, but 
enough is already known to give us a wonderful outlook into 
the life history of our common plants. It is evident that im- 
mediately preceding the glacial period the polar regions were 
not covered with ice, but sustained a rich growth of vegeta- 
tion, and plants flourished there which are now known only in 
warmer countries. The genus Magnolia to-day is sub-tropi- 
cal. Its species are found only in southeastern North America, 
southern Mexico, and southern Asia. But the scientists tell 
us that once it flourished abundantly throughout America 
and Europe, and its fossil remains are found in the tertiary 
rocks of Greenland and elsewhere within the arctic circle. 
Professor G. Frederick Wright, in ‘‘ The Ice Age in North 
America,” admirably presents the latest opinion in regard to 
the flight of the forests. He writes as follows: “The key 
applied by Professor Gray for the solution of this problem 
was suggested by the investigations of Heer and others, which 
had just brought out the fact that, during the Tertiary period, 
just before the beginning of the Ice Age, a temperate climate, 
corresponding to that of latitude 35° on the Atlantic coast, 
extended far up toward the North Pole, permitting Green- 
land and Spitzbergen to be covered with trees and plants 
similar in most respects to those found at the present time 
‘n Virginia and North Carolina. Here, indeed, in close prox- 
imity to the North Pole, were then residing in harmony and 
contentment, the ancestors of nearly all the plants and ani- 
mals which are now found in the north temperate zone, and 
here they would have continued to stay but for the cold 
breath of the approaching Ice Age, which drove them from 
their homes, and compelled them to migrate to more hospita- 
ble latitudes. 
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