''Magnolia dawsoniana'', known as Dawson's magnolia, is a

magnolia ''Magnolia'' is a large genus of about 210 to 340The number of species in the genus ''Magnolia'' depends on the taxonomic view that one takes up. Recent molecular and morphological research shows that former genera ''Talauma'', ''Dugandiodendro ...

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

native to the provinces of

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

and

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, usually at altitudes of .

Description

It is a small, ornamental

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

tree that can grow to heights of 20 m.

Leaf shape The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are coll ...

is obovate to elliptic-obovate, 7.5–14 cm-long, and is bright green above and glaucous underneath. The white to reddish flowers are large (16–25 cm wide), fragrant, and appear before leaves. It was first discovered in western Sichuan in 1869 by Père Jean Pierre Armand and was introduced in western cultivation in 1908, when E.H. Wilson sent seeds from plants growing near

Kangding Kangding (), also called Tachienlu and Dartsedo (; ), is a county-level city and the seat of Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province of Southwest China. Kangding is on the bank of the Dadu River and has been considered the histor ...

, Sichuan, to

Arnold Arboretum The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is a botanical research institution and free public park, located in the Jamaica Plain and Roslindale neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1872, it is the oldest public arboretum in N ...

in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. They are, however, rarely cultivated. ''Magnolia dawsoniana'' is cold hardy to

USDA The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...

hardiness zone A hardiness zone is a geographic area defined as having a certain average annual minimum temperature, a factor relevant to the survival of many plants. In some systems other statistics are included in the calculations. The original and most wide ...

References

External links

Photos of flowers and fruit
dawsoniana Endemic flora of China Trees of China Garden plants of Asia Ornamental trees Taxa named by Alfred Rehder {{Magnoliales-stub