Magnolia macclurei (Dandy) Figlar

This tender species from regions with a hot summer is quite typical of Section Michelia in forming a large, evergreen forest tree with fragrant white flowers in the axils of leaves, high in the canopy. Its fragrance is the major attraction. Figlar (2001) records how ‘when Floyd McClure discovered this species on a mountainside in Guangdong Province (near Canton or Guangzhou) in 1925, he remarked in his notebook ‘The fragrance of the flowers is the most intoxicating I ever breathed.’ A timber tree, it is also grown as an ornamental in southern China (Chen & Nooteboom 1993; Xia, Liu & Nooteboom 2008).

Now well established and flowering in Florida gardens, where it is available in the nursery trade, it is still highly experimental in our area as a borderline-hardy tree. It has flowered at a relatively small 2.5 m in Portland, Oregon (S. Hogan, pers. comm. 2007). Nurseryman Kevin Hughes introduced plants to Britain from American cultivation; in Wiltshire his plants were repeatedly defoliated at –4 °C, though they recovered as the weather warmed up. Tom Hudson cautions that it there has been confusion with hybrids in the trade (pers. comm. 2022).

Established and flowering outside our area in the warm-summer climate of South Carolina, Magnolia macclurei survived two consecutive winters with temperatures down to –11 °C at Magnolian Grove Arboretum (R. Figlar, pers. comm. 2007). In Cornwall, with its mild winters and cool summers, a young plant is growing outside at Tregrehan (T. Hudson pers. comm. 2022).

Liu et al. (2004) recognise M. macclurei var. sublanea Dandy, a minor variant with slightly larger flowers and densely tomentose branchlets, petioles, stipules and bracts. In Western cultivation it is at an early, experimental stage, but might prove hardier than the type (Botanic Treasures 2021).