DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
227 
size, and fragrance of their blossoms, or the beauty of their 
large and noble foliage, we may be allowed to doubt whether 
there is a more magnificent and showy genus of deciduous 
trees in the world. With the exception of a few shrubs or 
smaller trees, natives of China, and the mountains of Cen- 
tral Asia, it belongs exclusively to this continent, as no in- 
dividuals of this order are indigenous to Europe or Africa. 
The American species attracted the attention of the first 
botanists who came over to examine the riches of our native 
flora, and were transplanted to the gardens of England and 
France, more than a hundred years ago, where they are 
still valued as the finest hardy trees of that hemisphere. 
The Large Evergreen Magnolia, (M. grandijiora ,) or 
Big Laurel, as it is sometimes called, is peculiarly indige- 
nous to that portion of our country south of North Carolina, 
where its stately trunk, often seventy feet in height, and 
superb pyramid of deep green foliage, render it one of the 
loveliest and most majestic of trees. The leaves, which are 
evergreen, and somewhat resemble those of the laurel in 
form, are generally six or eight inches in length, thick in 
texture, and brilliantly polished on the upper surface. The 
highly fragrant flowers are composed of about six petals, 
opening in a wide cup-like form, of the most snowy white- 
ness of colour. Scattered among the rich foliage, their 
effect is exquisitely beautiful. The seeds are borne in an 
oval, cone-like carpel or seed-vessel, composed of a number 
of cells which split longitudinally, when the stony seed, 
covered with a bright red pulp, drops out. There are seve- 
ral varieties, which have been raised from the seed of this 
species abroad ; the most beautiful is the Exmouth Magno- 
lia, with fine foliage, rusty beneath ; it produces its flowers 
much earlier and more abundantly than the original sort. 
