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Magnolia opipara (H.T. Chang & B.L. Chen) Sima

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Credits

Julian Sutton (2022)

Recommended citation
Sutton, J. (2022), 'Magnolia opipara' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/magnolia/magnolia-opipara/). Accessed 2025-01-18.

Genus

Synonyms

  • Michelia opipara H.T. Chang & B.L. Chen

Other taxa in genus

Glossary

glaucous
Grey-blue often from superficial layer of wax (bloom).
pubescent
Covered in hairs.
synonym
(syn.) (botanical) An alternative or former name for a taxon usually considered to be invalid (often given in brackets). Synonyms arise when a taxon has been described more than once (the prior name usually being the one accepted as correct) or if an article of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature has been contravened requiring the publishing of a new name. Developments in taxonomic thought may be reflected in an increasing list of synonyms as generic or specific concepts change over time.

Credits

Julian Sutton (2022)

Recommended citation
Sutton, J. (2022), 'Magnolia opipara' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/magnolia/magnolia-opipara/). Accessed 2025-01-18.

Magnolia opipara

Magnolia opipara grown by Raf Lenaerts from seed from Kunming Botanical Garden (Botanic Treasures, Belgium, May 2022). Image John Grimshaw.

Tree to 16 m, 0.5 m dbh. Branchlets brown, glabrous or pubescent with greyish yellow lenticels. Leaves evergreen, thin and leathery, 20–27 × 7–11 cm, obovate, upper surface glossy green and glabrous or with greyish white pubescence, lower surface glaucous with greyish white pubescence, margins entire, apex acute; stipules adnate to the petiole. Flowers solitary, on axillary shoots, yellow-white and fragrant; tepals eight, the outer three obovate and ~3.8 cm long, inner tepals oblanceolate; gynoecium stipitate with many pilose carpels. Fruits 11–15 cm long and spicate; ripe carpels ovoid, lenticellate and with a short beak. Flowering April, fruiting September to October (China). (Liu et al. 2004).

Distribution  China Yunnan

Habitat Evergreen broadleaved forests, 1600–1900 m.

USDA Hardiness Zone 8-9

RHS Hardiness Rating H3

Conservation status Data deficient (DD)

Magnolia opipara is still little known in cultivation, but is established in western North America. Close to M. doltsopa, but differing in the grey-white pubescent lower leaf surface, it was treated as a synonym of M. doltsopa by Chen & Nooteboom (1993), although most workers continue to recognize it. At Quarryhill Botanical Garden, CA, a seedling planted in 2000 had achieved 6–7 m by only 2004, forming a narrow, upright young tree, although by 2008 it had still not flowered (H. Higson, pers. comm.). Unlike many other evergreen magnolias at Quarryhill, it was not scorched in the intense sunlight and dry heat there. Two clones originating from Kunming Botanical Garden are grown in Oregon by Sean Hogan, who appreciates them for their very glaucous, almost blue leaf undersides. After five years of growth they had achieved 4 m without flowering – but neither did they suffer any frost damage in that time (S. Hogan, pers. comm. 2007). In Europe, M. opipara has been offered commercially in a small way in Belgium (Botanic Treasures 2020); there is a young plant from this source at Tregrehan, Cornwall (T. Hudson pers. comm. 2022).

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