SMALL MAGNOLIA. 
9 
inches ; but it does not ordinarily exceed 20 or 30 feet. It is still smaller 
about New York and Philadelphia, where it yields fruit at the height of 5 
or 6 feet. 
The leaves are 5 or 6 inches long, petiolated, alternate, oblong-oval and 
entire. They are of a dark, shining green above, and glaucous underneath, 
thus presenting an agreeable contrast in the color of the two surfaces. 
The leaves fall in the autumn, and reappear early in the spring. 
The flowers, which are single and situated at the extremity of the 
branches, are 2 or 3 inches broad, white, and composed of several con- 
cave, oval petals. Near Charleston, S. C., the tree blossoms in May, and a 
month later in the neighbourhood of Philadelphia and New York, where 
the women and children penetrate into the swamps and gather its sweet- 
scented flowers to sell them in the markets. 
The fruit is small, green and conical, composed of a great number of 
cellules, and varying in length from an inch to an inch and a half. When 
ripe, the seeds, which are of a scarlet color, burst their cells, and remain 
some days suspended without, by white, lax, slender filaments. 
The seeds of the Small Magnolia very speedily become rancid. To 
preserve for a length of time their faculty of germinating, they must 
be placed as soon as they are gathered, and before the pulp which enve- 
lops the stone is withered, in rotten wood or in sand slightly moistened, 
where they are kept pool till they are committed to the ‘ground : this is the 
only mode of obtaining the tree from the seed. Although the Small Mag- 
nolia is so abundant in Lower Louisiana, in the Carolinas and in Georgia, 
young plants are very rarely met with. 
The bark of this tree is smooth and grayish, and its trunk is always 
crooked and divided into a great number of divaricating branches. Its 
wood, which is of a white color and very light, is employed for no use. 
The name of Beaver wood formerly given to the Small Magnolia, proves 
that the Beaver once inhabited those parts of the Middle States to which 
this tree is indigenous, and that on account of its softness it was felled by 
these animals in preference to other trees, for the construction of their dams 
and houses. The bark of the roots has an aromatic odor and a bitter 
taste. Some of the inhabitants drink an infusion of it in brandy, in rheu- 
matic affections, as a slight sudorific. In Lower Jersey, the country peo- 
ple steep the cones in rum or in whisky, and this liquor, which is very 
bitter, is regarded by them as a preservative against autumnahfevers. 
The Small Magnolia possesses the advantage of successfully resisting 
the rigorous wintérs of France, Germany and England. In 1811, a great 
number of trees of this species yielded ripe seeds in the environs of Paris. 
Of all indigenous and exotic trees capable of enduring an equal degree of 
cold, there is none which rivals it in the beauty of its foliage and of its 
flowers. It is deservedly in great request among the amateurs of garden- 
