By Joseph Sabine, Esq. 



205 



entitle it to a decided preference. It should, I think, for 

 distinction's sake, be called Burciiell's Double Swamp 

 Magnolia. 



The fifth variety is quite new. It was raised from seed 

 gathered from an old tree of the first described plant, in the 

 Garden of Mr. Thompson, of Mile End, in 1808, in which 

 year the Magnolias flowered and ripened their seeds in per- 

 fection. In the seed bed, one plant was observed with 

 peculiarly large leaves, and of vigorous growth, and was con- 

 sequently separated from the others, and treated with atten- 

 tion. It blossomed, for the first time, four years ago, and as 

 the size of the flowers is correspondent with the magnitude 

 of the other parts of the tree, it seems highly deserving of 

 cultivation. Young plants were early raised by layers, from 

 the original, and one of them, which is now five years old, is 

 near ten feet high. The shoots are very strong, and the 

 leaves, on an average, are about nine inches long, and four 

 inches broad, otherwise corresponding exactly with those of 

 the common deciduous variety, except that they are a little 

 less glaucous underneath. The flowers opened this year 

 about the middle of June ; the calyx leaves are long and nar- 

 row, thin in substance, of a greenish white colour, slightly 

 tinged on the back with red, and expanding separately from 

 the petals : the three exterior petals are very large, being 

 about three inches and a half long by two inches broad, of a 

 thick fleshy substance, enclosing the other parts of the 

 flower ; they are not so concave as in any of the other va- 

 rieties, being nearly flat when the flower is open ; the interior 

 petals are usually five, of the same length as the others, but 

 narrower ; the flower opens well, shewing all the petals dis- 



