I don't want to wait till I've reviewed all my photos from today to post this, because the magnolias are so perfect RIGHT NOW, and if you live anywhere near here, you might very soon want to join the folks out here gawking at them. There is a clear view from the parking area of the one labelled Magnolia sprengeri 'Eric Savill', now that the Magnolia sargentiana Var. robusta (is that the right name?) is gone. The colour seems better than ever this year. Oh, wait, I've said that every year. Last photo also shows blossoms from the Magnolia sargentiana behind the 'Eric Savill'. This Magnolia cylindrica is another on display before you get into the garden.
"Var. robusta" should be var. robusta. The white one looks like 'Pegasus', which was grown for years as M. cylindrica but eventually became recognized as a hybrid.
I thought Douglas Justice told me the opposite yesterday - that it had a label 'Pegasus' (which I did not find), but is M. cylindrica. It was a very brief conversation across the entrance plaza. Maybe I got it backwards? Thanks for the "var." correction - I wondered about that "V" but I copied something I had written before.
These plants came to us from North Carolina State University Arboretum (now the J.C. Raulston Arboretum) in 1989. They were originally labelled Magnolia amoena. It was then determined that they were not M. amoena, but 'Pegasus'; however, subsesquent to that, we realized that our plants are not like the actual 'Pegasus', which is reputed to be a hybrid of M. denudata and M. cylindrica. Recently I asked Dick Figlar (noted magnolia authority) to weigh in. He said: This plant certainly looks like "ordinary" M. cylindrica based on the sepaloid tepals and in a more subtle way by the shape of the flowers. Magnolia 'Pegasus' on the other hand, usually has 9 "normal" sized tepals (with one or more of the outer tepals occasionally being variably smaller or nearly sepaloid-like. Garden IDs of both of these taxa (especially 'Pegasus') are often confused in collections, but I believe you have the real cylindrica here. At least we cannot prove that it is not M. cylindrica. The only other taxon that could be sometimes be confused with M. cylindrica is M. biondii, but biondii blooms much earlier in the season (1 to 4 weeks earlier) than M. cylindrica, and has greenish colored stems (or mottled green) toward the distal ends of the twigs. Magnolia cylindrica has brownish twigs. The Magnolia Pegasus Group is probably a sort of mixed bag of M.cylindrica x M. denudata crosses and back-crosses, thus they might be more variable in their morphology. But I've never seen one which consistently bears the 3 sepaloid tepals. Perhaps the Raulston simply got the morphology difference "backwards." That can happen sometimes.
This tree, labelled Magnolia cylindrica, is at peak bloom three weeks later than the one I first posted. It's in the middle of the Asian Garden, not on its own outside the garden.
That looks generally more like what I would expect true examples of the species to look like. Possibly the difference in flowering times is significant, the previous example coming on sooner due to partial M. denudata parentage. But hybrids should consist of varying combinations of pertinent morphological characters (and flowering behavior) such as those discussed above; I am not familiar with which ones are diagnostically significant in this case.
