MAGNOLIA; GREAT LAUREL MAGNOLIA (Magnolia Mick Sarg.). 50 to 80 feet. Regular, conical, or pyramidal, ever green tree with small, spreading branches and pubescent, hoary twigs, bearing large, rusty winter buds. Bark thin, scaly, brown or gray. Wood white, hard, heavy, close grained, turning brown, used for fuel. Leaves oblong or ovate, 5 to 8 inches long, plain-margined, leathery, polished dark green above, rusty, downy beneath, persistent S years. Flowers April to August, creamy-white, cup-shaped, fragrant, of 3 sepals and 6 to 9 petals, all waxen, thick, surrounding many purple-stemmed stamens and a central spike of pistils on purple base. Fruit a cone, oval, rusty brown, 3 to 4 inches
long, erect; seeds 2 in capsule, scarlet, hung out when ripe on flexible thread; seeds ripe in November. Ornamental tree cultivated extensively in all temperate countries. Hardy it Boston.