The Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora), the state flower of Louisiana and Mississippi, grows throughout the southeastern United States. Dark evergreen leaves with chocolate undersides surround fragrant white flowers that can be the size of a dinner plate. An ancient species dating back at least twenty million years, the primitive flowers are pollinated by beetles as they eat the pollen and flower petals. The flowers mature into cones containing bright red seeds that provide food for wildlife. Magnolia honors Frenchman Pierre Magnol (1638–1715), the first botanist to propose classifying plants into groups sharing natural features.
Evergreen of the south
Majestic flower! How purely beautiful
Thou art, as rising from thy bower of green,
Those dark and glossy leaves so thick and full,
Thou standest like a high-born forest queen
Among thy maidens clustering round so fair,—
I love to watch thy sculptured form unfolding,
And look into thy depths, to image there
A fairy cavern, and while thus beholding,
And while thy breeze floats o’er thee, matchless flower,
I breathe the perfume, delicate and strong,
That comes like incense from thy petal-bower;
My fancy roams those southern woods along,
Beneath that glorious tree, where deep among
The unsunned leaves thy large while flowercups hung!
Poem to the Magnolia Grandiflora, Christopher Pearce Cranch
