The magnolia that Linnwus named grandiflora is a kingly tree. It is not graceful, for its limbs are stiffly erect. Even the twigs and leaves are stiff, and in blossom the tree is like a great system of candelabra, each terminal bud containing a single flower. But look at a fine specimen tree as it stands in a Southern garden new-washed by a night rain. Each leaf of the dark pyramid of green reflects the sunlight like a blade of polished metal. This lustrous foliage mass is just the foil to set off the purity of the white flowers. Each is like a great camellia or a water lily, with waxen petals, enclosing the purple heart. William Bartram likened them to great white roses, and declared that he could see them distinctly a mile away. The blossoms, when fully open, are from 7 to 8 inches across, as a rule. There is a horticultural variety called gloriosa, the flowers of which Mr. Berckmanns says are 14 inches in diameter. In southern Cali fornia there are double and ever-blooming varieties exploited by nurserymen, and there are no more popular ornamental trees than these. Unfortunately, this magnolia has one drawback—its flowers have a heavy odour which is disagreeable to many people. Another is this: They cannot be shipped as cut flowers, for the slightest bruise of the waxy petals produces a brownish discoloura tion. This is the species that furnishes the splendid evergreen foliage that is shipped North for Christmas decoration, and is used for similar purposes in the South. The upper surface of each leaf is a dark, lustrous green; the lining of rusty-red fuzz is shed when the leaf is old. Negroes go into the woods and cut down large trees and small to strip them of their leafy branches.
The comparative uselessness of its wood has until now been the saving of the species. This new industry already threatens its
extermination in many sections of the South.
In cultivation this magnolia is oftenest seen as a small tree, from zo to 5o feet high, planted on lawns and in parks or lining avenues. In the forests of Louisiana, where it reaches its greatest perfection, it stands 8o feet high, with a trunk 4 feet thick. Professor Sargent calls it "the most splendid ornamental tree in the American forests." The Swamp Bay (Magnolia glauca, Linn.)—A splendid tree 5o to 75 feet high, or a shrub of many stems. Bark grey or brown, smooth. Wood soft, pale reddish brown, weak. Buds silky, tot inch long. Leaves persistent in the South, deciduous in the North; smooth, lustrous, bright green, with silvery lining minutely hairy; blades oblong-lanceolate or ovate, 4 to 6 inches long, blunt at apex and base, margin entire, petiole short, stout. Flowers globular, 2 to 3 inches across when spread, creamy white, fragrant, of 9 to 12 broad concave petals. Fruit oval, dark red, smooth, 0} to 2 inches long; seeds inch long, flattened. Pre ferred habitat, swamps and pine-barren ponds. Distribution, Florida to Texas and Arkansas; north along Atlantic coast to New York; isolated stations in Suffolk County, Long Island, and near Gloucester, Massachusetts. Uses: Valuable ornamental tree or shrub in American and European gardens. Branches sold for decoration of houses and churches. Cut flowers hawked on city streets. Wood used for broom handles and for small wooden utensils.
. The swamp bay is remarkable for its range, which extends from Gloucester, Massachusetts, to Florida, and westward to lower Arkansas and the Trinity River in Texas. On the rich "ham mocks" elevated above the cypress swamps and pine forests of middle Florida this magnolia is a tree of slender trunk but often 5o to 75 feet high. Leaves, flowers and fruit proclaim it a mag nolia. The smooth, silvery linings distinguish the leaves from those of the other evergreen magnolia. The small globular flowers and the smooth, diminutive fruits further identify it. From Bay Biscayne northward along the coast, following the pine barrens and swamp borders, this fugitive species becomes gradually dwarfed and its leaves become deciduous. In New Jersey it is a shrub, vigorous and tropical looking, for the region, but very unlike the sub-tropical representatives of the species. On Long Island there is a station of this bay in Suffolk County. A few remaining plants are known still to exist in a swamp near Glouces ter, Massachusetts, the only place north of the latitude of New York which has any recollection of native magnolias growing wild near by. I wandered through that Gloucester swamp, just east of the station named Magnolia, in a vain quest for the remnant of the colony. I was told that the only person who knew where the survivors grew was "the Hermit," who formerly made his living by digging up young plants and selling them. Thrifty garden specimens in Gloucester and other points on Cape Ann came originally out of this swamp. The colony is now practically extinct.