Southern Magnolias

A closer look at the iconic evergreen
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Here in the South, Magnolia grandiflora reigns. Adorning cemeteries, residential streets, and grand public properties, the Southern magnolia represents, for many, the resilient character of Dixie and all she holds dear. Named for French botanist Pierre Magnol, the iconic evergreen is among eighty magnolia species native to the United States and Asia.

  • One of North America’s largest native trees, the Southern magnolia grows up to eighty feet tall and forty feet wide, with flowers measuring more then twelve inches in breadth.
  • The first magnolias existed before bees—about thirty to fifty million years ago. Nitidulid beetles, then Earth’s main pollinators, pollinated the plant by crawling between its tight petals.
  • The plant’s white cuplike buds—pink and lavender among sibling species elsewhere—are composed of six to twelve leaf-like petals, called tepals. Popular in weddings, these tough, structured blooms symbolize endurance and long life.
  • After his wife died, President Andrew Jackson planted a cutting from a Southern magnolia at their Nashville home, the Hermitage, at the White House. The tree—located near the South Portico—is the oldest on the property.
  • In Mississippi, the Magnolia State, schoolchildren voted the Southern magnolia the official state flower in 1900 and the state tree in 1938. The blossom is also claimed by Louisiana.
  • The tree’s moniker is the most popular street name in both Louisiana and Mississippi, with 175 and 172 iterations, respectively.
  • Steel Magnolias was filmed in Natchitoches, Louisiana, the hometown of the film’s writer, Robert Harling. Julia Roberts’s character, Shelby, is modeled after his late sister, Susan.
  • Smith County, Mississippi, boasts the nation’s largest Southern magnolia on record, measuring 122 feet tall and more than six feet in diameter.
  • The largest private grove of Southern magnolias is in Pulaski, Tennessee, on Milky Way Farm, the property once owned by the founder of Mars Candies.
  • The magnolia’s creamy citrus notes—sweet, slightly tart, and fresh—are the basis for lemony fragrances such as Estee Lauder’s Beautiful Love.

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