Peter Wharton stood outside my work door early yesterday morning and proclaimed “The Magnolia delavayi is in bloom.” I could predict the next sentence to be uttered. “Do you want to take a photo of it?” Here is one of those photographs, rendered in black and white.
I am hoping that Peter will have the time today to add more information about the plant in the comments. For now, I'll share that this is an evergreen magnolia from southern China. It is rated as endangered by the 2006 IUCN Red List because of its fragmented populations (five or fewer) and continuing degradation of habitat – not encouraging.
This particular plant can be seen east of the junction of Handel-Mazzetti trail and Lower Asian Way in the Asian Garden. Each flower lasts less than a day, so this flower has already dropped its tepals. If you'd like a chance to see this rarity, it should have enough flower buds that it will continue to blossom through the upcoming weekend.
Essentially a tender foliage plant, with impressive leaves. Grown in North America only on Pacific Coast. In North American nurseries by 1947. Despite extreme rarity included in table of magnolias in Sunset WESTERN GARDEN BOOK. Often multistemmed, as at Berkeley, California where one planted 1959 was 43 ft. tall with an average crown spread of 39 ft. by 1993.
Just a note - Peter is on vacation today, so perhaps he'll comment tomorrow.
I am back! Magnolia delavayi is a great survivor in the wild. It often crouches in crevices on those low rounded karst ridges that are so typical of what the Chinese call, the 'Stone Desert', an arid region south-east of Kunming towards Kaiyuan, Yunnan. I remember ragged cut over plants competing in crevices with cultivated sweet corn and ubiquitous Eucalyptus globulus. The present severe drought in south-western China must be pushing these plants to their limits.
Our plants interestingly are derived from a wild Salween(Nujiang)collection made by a quartet of contemporary plant collectors, Peter and Kenneth Cox, Peter Hutchinson and our own Pacific NW plant hunter, Steve Hootman, under CCHH 8026. This is a low elevation collection at 1870m beside the Salween, in hot, arid, rain shadow conditions. We have found -5 degrees C has done damage to our young plants without killing them outright. Increasing age may engender a modicum of additional frost hardiness, plus continued global warming could make this a genuine addition to our plant palette in future years.
The paddle shaped, oblong-ovate leaves have a most attractive bluish-pewter hue which contrasts well with the six ephemeral creamy-white tepals. The additional, three outer ones reflex downwards and have a curious greenish pallor which quickly turns buff brown as the flower ages over 24 hours. Our plants do not seem to have any strong fragrance - hopefully a mature characteristic that develops in future years.
Peter Wharton
Magnolia delavayi - Z9 - RHS Index of Garden Plants, Griffiths
Magnolia delavayi - Z7-9 - A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, Brickell, Cole, Zuk
Magnolia delavayi - 'Requires wall protection exccept in favoured localities.' - Hillier Manual of Trees & Shrubs, 2003