MAGNOLIA. 



MAGyOLIACE.l,, POLYANDRIA POLYGYNIA, 



Named Magnolia by Plumier^ in honour of Pierre Magnol^ pro- 

 fessor of medicine, prefect of the Botanic Garden at Montpelier, 

 and author of several botanical works. Miller calls the laurel- 

 leaved magnolia^ sweet-flowering bay : the gardeners give it the 

 appellation of tulip-tree ; a name also common to the Liriudendi^on 

 iuJipifera. — French, magnolier j Italian, magnolia. 



The Magnolias are trees; chiefly American, and none 

 European. Their leaves are large ; their flowers axillary, 

 very large and sweet-scented. 



The Great Laurel-leaved i\IagnoHa, Magnolia grandi- 

 flora^ in the southern provinces of North America, rises 

 with a straight trunk of two feet or more in diameter, to 

 the height of seventy or eighty feet, or yet higher, di- 

 viding into m.any spreading branches that form a lai'ge 

 regular head. The leaves are nine or ten inches long, 

 and three broad in the middle, of a thick consistence, 

 resembling those of the common laurel, but much 

 larger ; they are of a lucid green on the upper surface, 

 and often of a russet colour beneath : they continue 

 gi'een all the year, falling off* only as new ones are pro- 

 duced. The flowers are large, composed of eight or ten 

 petals, narrow at their base, but broad, rounded, and a 

 little waved at their extremities : they spread open very 

 wide, are of a pure white, and have an agreeable odour. 



In its native country, this tree begins to blossom in 

 May, and continues in flower for a long time, so that the 

 woods are perfumed with it the greater part of the 



