June, 1906 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



267 





magnolia (M.. stellata, formerly M. Hall- 

 eana.) Unlike all the other magnolias, save 

 Kobus, this has a starry, instead of a bell- 

 shaped , flower. It has twice as many petals 

 as the common kinds (9 — 18), and they are 

 long and narrow. You cannot get acquainted 

 with this lovely shrub too quickly. It makes 

 a compact, shapely bush, rarely eight feet 

 high. The flowers are only three inches across 

 but the plant has every virtue, including 

 the astonishing trait of blooming freely when 

 only two feet high. It sometimes flowers 

 before the last flurry of snow has gone. 

 Hardy at Boston. It was introduced from 

 Japan by Dr. G. R. Hall of Rhode Island. 



A TREE MAGNOLIA WITH STELLATE FLOWERS 



Thurber's magnolia (M. Kobus) 

 promises to be the hardiest of all magnolias. 

 (The Japanese species grow wild at higher 

 altitudes than the American.) It is a 

 pyramidal tree attaining fifty feet in its native 

 country, and has star-shaped flowers four 

 or five inches across which appear in May. 

 They are not as pure a white as stellata. 



No starry magnolia can ever compete 

 for popular interest with the cup-shaped 

 forms, but this species deserves trial every- 

 where. Some say it blossoms freely and 

 has abundant and showy fruit, and claim that 

 it is the hardiest and quickest-growing mag- 

 nolia for New England. Others complain 

 that it is a shy bloomer. 



BLOOMING AFTER THE LEAVES 



SOLD IN THE STREETS — GLAUCA 

 The magnolia blossoms that are sold by 

 street fakirs in New York and Philadelphia 

 in May are those of the sweet bay (Magnolia 

 glauca.) These flowers, though small for a 

 magnolia, are two or three inches across, 

 white and fragrant. This species grows in 

 swamps from Florida to Gloucester, Mass. 

 It is a deciduous shrub in the North, but in 

 the South it is a splendid evergreen tree, 

 second only to Magnolia grandiflora in beauty, 

 and, in the opinion of some, having the ad- 

 vantage over the latter in odor. You can 

 always tell this species from other magnolias 

 by the powdery white bloom on the under 

 side of the leaves from which it gets its name 

 glauca. It is also called the swamp, or 

 laurel magnolia, and its friends declare that 

 it is even showier in fruit than in flower. 



THE BEST AVENUE TREE — ACUMINATA 



The cucumber tree (Magnolia acuminata) 

 gets its name from the fact that its upright 

 fruits, when green, look something like 

 cucumbers. All magnolias have attractive 

 rosy fruits with an astonishing habit of sus- 

 pending their bright red seeds on incredibly 

 slender threads as shown on page 268. 



The flowers of the cucumber tree are in- 

 conspicuous — a miserable greenish yellow, 

 only an inch or two across and as a rule par- 

 tially hidden by the foliage. (They are 

 also peculiar in having upright petals.) As 

 an ornamental tree its chief merit is its fruit, 

 but it has the stately pyramidal habit of its 

 relative, the tulip tree, and is also quick grow- 

 ing and generally free from insect troubles, 

 which cannot always be said of the Lirio- 



dendron. While native no farther north 

 than Southern New York, it is hardy in New 

 England. It is the easiest of all magnolias to 

 transplant and therefore best adapted to use 

 as an avenue tree. 



THE SHOWIEST LN FRUIT — TRIPETALA 



The umbrella tree (M. tripetala), owes its 

 common name to the fact that the leaves are 

 clustered at the ends of the branches in such 

 a way as to suggest an umbrella. Its specific 

 name refers to the three petal-like sepals 

 which are recurved only in this species. 

 This splendid tree has flowers eight to ten 

 inches across, borne in June, but unfor- 

 tunately they are of a disagreeable odor. 

 The fruits are the largest of any hardy 

 species — sometimes six inches. While this 

 species grows wild no farther north than 

 Southeastern Pennsylvania, it is hardy at 

 New York and Rochester and may perhaps 

 surpass the cucumber tree for avenues. 

 As a lawn tree it is already superior. 



FLOWERS A FOOT ACROSS — MACROPHYLLA 



The great-leaved magnolia has leaves a 

 yard long and flowers a foot across in June. 

 It is not merely the largest flowered magnolia 

 but the largest flowered tree of any kind that 

 can be grown in temperate regions. A 

 unique feature of the flower is the purple spot 

 at the base of each of the inner petals. It is 

 fragrant, too, but I cannot rejoice over it. 

 It is too big and so are the leaves, which are 





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ridiculously thin, so that they are whipped 

 into tatters unless sheltered by a windbreak 

 as they are at Dosoris, Long Island. 



THE TENDER MAGNOLIAS 



Of the two important species that bloom 

 before the leaves, the purple magnolia (M. 

 obovata) has been described on page 266. 



THREE PURE-WHITE-FLOWERED SPECIES 



Magnolia pumila is worth growing though 

 its flowers are only an inch and a quarter 

 across, because there are enough of them and 

 they are set off by evergreen foliage. This 

 shrub seldom grows more than five feet high. 

 It is in bloom nearly all the year and the flowers 

 have the odor of pineapple. Unfortunately, 

 the plant is injured by only ten degrees of 

 frost. It is known to Southern nurserymen 

 as Talauma -pumila. 



The ear-leaved umbrella tree (M . Fraseri) 

 is the only magnolia that has the base of the 

 leaf prolonged like the lobes of the ear. Its 

 flowers are six to nine inches across and have 

 enough of a yellowish tinge to be called 

 milky white or even canary yellow. The 

 odor is generally considered agreeable. 

 As it is a native of the Southern Appala- 

 chians it ought to be hardier than the other 

 Southern magnolias and I have seen one 

 good-sized tree on Long Island behind a 

 windbreak, but whether it can survive north 

 of New York is yet to be demonstrated. 



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The best March-blooming, white-flowered hardy shrub in cultivation, Magnolia stellata. It has flat, star-shaped 

 white flowers three inches across, not cup-shaped but flat and star-liKe 



