Magnolia macclurei Seeds | Mcclure Magnolia

McClure Magnolia (Magnolia macclurei) evergreen tree with large leathery leaves and creamy-white fragrant flowers — McClure Magnolia (*Magnolia macclurei*): Magnoliaceae, an evergreen Chinese magnolia of the warm south.

LATIN NAME: Magnolia macclurei

COMMON NAME: McClure Magnolia

Plant Profile

McClure Magnolia is a tall, stately evergreen tree of the magnolia family from the mountains of southern China, growing fifteen to twenty metres or more with an open crown of large, leathery, glossy leaves. In late winter and early spring, before much else has stirred, it opens big, fragrant, creamy-white flowers with purple at the base of the petals, carried upright along the branches.

It is a tree of the warm, humid south, planted in temple grounds and city parks in its home range, and it wants full sun, deep, fertile, well-drained ground and freedom from hard frost. In a mild garden it is a specimen of the first rank.

Science & Biotechnology

The species sits in the evergreen magnolia group of southern China, and it features in taxonomic and conservation work on that rich flora, its wild populations documented in the regional floristic studies.

One correction belongs here: the famous magnolia-bark drug Hou Po comes from a different tree, Magnolia officinalis, and older popular accounts sometimes attach it to this species; the chemistry literature keeps the two apart, and the honokiol and magnolol research belongs to the officinalis. Studies of its flowering phenology in southern Chinese cities document the early, sweet-scented bloom as a seasonal marker, the civic value of the tree recorded alongside its botany. Conservation assessments of the southern Chinese evergreen magnolias track the species’ wild stands, and cultivated trees in botanic gardens form part of its ex-situ record.

Uses & Benefits

In the garden it is a spring tree of the mild winter: fragrant white flowers on an evergreen frame, red seed clusters for the birds in autumn, and a scale that suits a park or a generous lawn.

The timber is used locally in China, and the tree’s early, sweet-scented bloom makes it a landmark in the warm-city streetscape wherever it is planted. The fallen petals scent the ground beneath the tree in bloom, and gardeners of the warm south rate the smell among the magnolias’ best. In Chinese cities the species is planted as a street and park tree through the warm south, and its early bloom gives the winter streetscape one of its few white moments.

Growing from Seed

Clean the red seed coat and stratify the seed cold and moist over winter, then sow into a loose, acid-leaning compost; germination is slow and uneven, so hold the pots two years.

Grow the young trees in light shade at first, then full sun, potting on as they fill their containers, and plant out only where winters are mild and the soil is deep. Water through the first two summers. Feed it an ericaceous diet if the leaves yellow; like many southern Chinese magnolias it prefers a slightly acid root run and shows its displeasure early.

Our Take

An evergreen magnolia that flowers in the last weeks of winter: big, fragrant and unbothered. Warm winters, deep soil and a lawn’s worth of space.

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