Magnolia figo banana shrub

This shrubby evergreen magnolia typically grows to about 8 feet tall. The intensely fragrant flowers, the smallest of Stanford’s magnolias, are 1–1½ inches wide with yellowish-cream tepals sometimes edged in purple-brown, and release a distinctive ripe banana scent. They are borne on short shoots in the leaf axils, a characteristic of section Michelia (see M. doltsopa).

A pair on the left at 668 Salvatierra Street may be campus’s only examples. A row was formerly planted at the southwest corner of the old Career Development Center (now Barnum Center); the sole remaining plant there was removed in 2005.