''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'', ''Dugandiodendr ...

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

native to the provinces of

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

and

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, 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 Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

tree that can grow to heights of 20 m.

Leaf shape The following terms are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (that is, the leaf blade or 'lamina' is undivided) or compound (that is, the leaf blade is divided into two or more leaflets ...

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 ( zh, c=康定), also known as 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 his ...

, Sichuan, to

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

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

USDA The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commerc ...

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 widely ...

6. File:Magnolia dawsoniana (1).jpg File:Magnolia dawsoniana 1387.jpg, Flowers File:Magnolia dawsoniana - leaves 200606.JPG, Leaves

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