Magnolias Plant Directory

Magnolia salicifolia
Section Buergeria
Epithet: willow like, referring to the leaves.
H4
Diploid (2n=38)
AM Exbury 1927, FCC Windsor 1962, (AGM 1941, 1993, removed 2012)
Large shrub or, more usually, small slender tree to 12m, with silvery or brownish grey bark.
10 year height/spread: 3.5m/2m
Flowers: usually 6 (occasionally 7-8 and very rarely up to 12) petaloid tepals 5-9cm long by
2-4cm wide, white sometimes pale purple or greenish towards the base, narrow and upright at
first, opening later, with white to pink filaments; usually fragrant.
April.
Foliage: usually lanceolate (but occasionally elliptic to ovate or oblong lanceolate) leaves to 6.5-12cm
long, 2-5.5cm wide, apex acute or rounded. Dull green and usually glabrous above, usually glaucous
(or pale green) below and covered more or less completely but inconspicuously with a fine
indumentum. Petiole yellowish and slightly decurrent.
Introduced to England: 1906.
Distribution: Japan: Honshu, Shikoshu, Kyushu; 500-1000m.
Recognise by: similar to kobus, but this lacks the pubescence on the lower leaf surface, and the
leaves of salicifolia are often lanceolate; the flowers.
Flowers after about 8 years from seed. 'Jermyns' is a slow growing shrubby form, and there has been
a form 'fastigiata' in commerce (sometimes wrongly called 'fasciata').