Hi everyone. I live in Ontario Canada. We just moved into our home last June and we had a tree in the back yard. Very green and perfect and pretty but didn't do anything. We noticed little clusters (for lack of better word) but nothing happened. Then it lost it's leaves for the winter......Then towards the end of this April things started to happen. There were all kinds of buds on it, but they looked just like pussy willow. Then another change, the pussy willow buds turned into white/pinkish buds and voila....beautiful fragant flowers and boy did they come out like crazy. So, I'm hoping that someone can tell me exactly what it is.
No it is not Magnolia lobernii Dr. Merrill or often called Merrill. All Magnolia loebnerii have more tepals like M. stellata.
The normal tepal range for Lobner magnolia is 11-15, occasionally up to 30. The normal tepal count for star magnolia is 9-20, sometimes up to 60. http://images.google.com/images?um=...fficial&q=loebneri+merrill&btnG=Search+Images
Can't remember if 'Lennei alba' has a pinkish flush, it's just finishing here now and M. denudata is over . Not much help. Thought 'Merrill' had narrower tepals and more {about 15} than the one shown in the photo. Maybe a leaf or seed pod photo later will help id or a tepal count.
Chimera, you are right, 'Merrill' has narrower tepals and while not as many as stellata, it has more than those shown in the original picture that started this discussion. I believe that 'Lennei alba' does have a slight pink flush, though I can't find a picture of it in my extensive collection.
Look at the pictures at my link, Harold(?). Comparatively large, broad tepals are characteristic of 'Merrill'. Apart from the structure of the flowers the slenderness and straightness of the sideways-pointing flowering twigs on the plant shown are not those of a Yulan or a saucer magnolia. Those produce stout, curving shoots that present the flowers in an upright position.
I guess I am too well known, you soon figured out who was writing, though signing as Greer Gardens is sort of a give away! I agree with you in many ways, but I still say all of the loberni Merrill I have grown have more narrow tepals, and even the pictures from your link, especially the ones from the RHS seem to show that. I can't seem to post pictures tonight or I would show you what I have always been told was loberni. Merrill. Your observations show you do know much about magnolias.
I co-organized the Seattle meeting of the [American] Magnolia Society together with Joe Witt in 1980, and had been a member for some years before then. (I no longer belong). Magnoliaphile Don King has also been posting here recently. I also contributed to the magnolia section of North American Landscape Trees (1996, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley) and to the discovery and recognition of magnolias for inclusion in Trees of Seattle - Second Edition (2006, A.L. Jacobson, Seattle). (Some Dawson magnolias I pointed out made it into the appendix of the first edition). I have also been to Greer Gardens.
