Magnolia × soulangeana saucer magnolia

Saucer magnolia (Magnolia × soulangeana) in the History Corner of the Outer Quad. Sairus Patel, 18 Feb 2018

Two of eight saucer magnolia trees where Dueña St enters Escondido Mall, behind Memorial Church. Sairus Patel, 2 Feb 2017

The most commonly encountered deciduous magnolia on campus, and arguably the most spectacular. Its large, tulip-shaped flowers appear on bare branches in mid-winter, often becoming noticeable from late January into early March. The petals are not readily distinguishable from the sepals, and are called, happily enough, tepals. These are substantial and fleshy, pink on the outside and pale pink to white inside. The fuzzy, down-clad buds open sequentially, extending the display, though any individual flower may last little more than a fortnight. After flowering, large oval leaves emerge, broader at the ends, and the trees rapidly sink into nondescriptness for the remainder of the year.

Originating in the garden of retired French cavalry officer Étienne Soulange-Bodin near Paris around 1820, though similar hybrids may well have arisen long before in Japanese gardens, this group of crosses and back-crosses between the southeastern Chinese species M. denudata and M. liliiflora (both seen locally) has elevated Soulange-Bodin’s name to eternal floral fame.

The most conspicuous plants are a group of eight where Dueña Street meets Escondido Mall, and a trio near the Post Office flagpole. One is on the east side of the Bookstore, and several behind Encina Commons. A majestic specimen stands at 821 San Francisco Court. In Palo Alto, a massive eleven-trunked centenarian that bore about 2,000 flowers in a single season once grew adjacent to 125 Middlefield Road, opposite Hawthorne Avenue, but was lost around 2005.

No named selections have been documented for Stanford plantings outside of private gardens on campus, and nurseries do not always specify one. Cultivars are multitudinous and often vexingly similar; distinct clones may circulate under the same name – ‘Alexandrina’, for instance, which can be seen on the right at 708 Salvatierra Street on campus, and on the left of the house at Filoli in Woodside. The Salvatierra tree has a more marked contrast between the white inner tepals and the outside, and is more purplish-hued. Both, however, bloom a couple of weeks after other saucer magnolias, as is typical of ‘Alexandrina’.

‘Genie’, a small-statured, complex hybrid, has appeared locally in recent years. Its rounded, tulip-shaped flowers are a deep, saturated plum-purple throughout, the inner surfaces sometimes lightening as the flowers age. It blooms in February and continues into early April as it leafs out. At 708 Salvatierra Street, where ‘Alexandrina’ stands to the right, a young ‘Genie’ grows on the left. A taller ‘Genie’ is to the left of the garage at 714 East Meadow Drive in Palo Alto. By parentage, ‘Genie’ is 56¼ percent Magnolia × soulangeana, 31¼ percent M. liliiflora (not counting its contribution in the soulangeana pedigree), 9⅜ percent M. campbellii, and 3⅛ percent M. sargentii, the latter represented by a single great-great-great-grandparent.

Name derivation: Magnolia – Pierre Magnol, 1638–1715, botanist of Montpellier; soulangeana – see text above.