48 
or shrub have a more penetrating or delightful odor. A plant for every 
garden great or small, how often is the Sweet Bay found in those of 
modern construction? The town of Magnolia in Essex County, Massa- 
chusetts, which is the northern station for this plant was named for it. 
At the north and in the middle states it is a shrub or small tree rarely 
more than twenty or thirty feet high, but southward it is replaced by 
the variety australis, differing in the silky white pubescence on the 
pedicels and branchlets, and becoming a tree sometimes ninety feet 
high with a trunk occasionally three feet in diameter and the common 
form from North Carolina to southern Florida and westward to the 
valley of the Nueces River, Texas. Magnolia major or Thompsoniana, 
a probable hybrid between M. virginiana and M. tripetala, which was 
raised' in an English nursery a century ago and is still a favorite plant, 
is in the Arboretum and is intermediate in character between these two 
American species; it has the general appearance of M. virginiana but 
has larger leaves and larger and equally fragrant flowers. 
Magnolia macrophylla flowers a few days later than M. virginiana 
and is now in bloom. It is a wonderful southern tree with leaves sil- 
very white on the lower surface and often thirty inches long and ten 
inches wide, with flowers a foot in diameter; it is perfectly hardy in 
eastern Massachusetts, although here as elsewhere the great leaves are 
often torn by the wind unless a sheltered position is selected for it. 
It is an interesting fact that its leaves and flowers are larger than 
those of any other tree which grows in an extra tropical region. 
The latest Azaleas are now in bloom. There are two North Ameri- 
can white-flowered species. Rhododendron {Azalea) arborescens and R. 
{Azalea) viscosum. R. arborescens is a handsome plant and the beauty 
of its pure white fragrant flowers is increased by the bright red color 
of the long filaments and style. It is an Appalachian plant, and some- 
times at an elevation of five thousand feet covers with dense thickets 
only a few feet high and sometimes acres in extent the treeless sum- 
mits of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and in their sheltered valleys some- 
times grows into arborescent bushes twenty feet tall. A variety is 
known in which the white flowers are faintly tinged with rose color. 
Rhododendron (Azalea) viscosum blooms a little later and is now also 
in flower in the Arboretum. It is a common plant in the swamps of 
southern New England where it is known as the Swamp Honeysuckle. 
The pure white clammy flowers w^hich continue to open during several 
weeks are hidden by the new shoots of the year which are often fully 
grown before the first flowers open, and the great value of this Azalea 
is found in the fragrance of the flowers which makes the neighborhood 
of an Azalea swamp delightful. Although it grows naturally in swamps, 
this Azalea grows equally well transferred to a garden border or to a 
hillside, as on the southern slope of Bussey Hill where many of these 
plants are now covered with flowers. 
