370 
DECIDUOUS TREES. 
where the soil is deep and fertile. Such facts render it apparent 
that it is a tree unsuited to those open sites and gravelly soils at 
the north where the sugar maples and the common chestnut are 
most beautiful. It seems to us too gross a tree for small grounds. 
The following species is a more pleasing tree: 
The Heart-leaved Magnolia. M. cordata. — We have seen 
in northern grounds more healthy-looking trees of this variety than 
of any other. Doctor Kirtland thinks it may be only a variety of 
the M. acuminata ; but, whether a variety or a species, it is quite 
distinct in leaves, flowers, and style. It is a smaller and handsomer 
tree in all respects. Though a native of the Carolinas and Georgia, 
where it is found principally on the uplands and mountains, it is 
quite hardy in the Central Park, New York, and fine specimens 
are growing in private grounds near the Sound and on the Hudson 
River. Downing says of it : “ It blooms in the gardens very young 
and very abundantly, often producing two crops in a season.” The 
flowers appear in June and July, and occasionally afterwards till 
frosts. They are yellow, streaked with red, and from three to four 
inches in diameter. The leaves are smaller, rounder, darker, and 
more glossy than those of the acicnmata^ and are disposed to be 
wavy, which gives a finer play of light upon them. The form of 
the tree is a true ovate. The foliage is more abundant, and breaks 
into more pleasing masses than that of the larger-leaved magno- 
lias. It also keeps a tree-form naturally, while some of the latter 
are apt to throw up several stems from the heart near the ground. 
In ordinary lawn exposures, this species, we think, will prove 
only less interesting than the Magnolia macrophylla., on which, 
as well as on the M. tripetela and M. auriculata^ the individual 
leaves and flowers are so magnificent, that the contours of the 
trees themselves, however ungainly, and the breaks of light and 
shade in their heads, are forgotten while observing their remarka- 
ble details. This heart-leaved magnolia exhibits less striking 
features, and forms a beautiful connecting-link between the great- 
leaved magnolias and our exuberantly-foliaged northern trees, 
which are distinguished by the abundance rather than the size of 
their leaves. 
