San Francisco Botanical Garden

Common name: Zen magnolia (English); bao hua yu lan (Chinese)

Family: Magnoliaceae (Magnolia)

Synonym: Yulania zenii

Distribution: China

IUCN Red list: Critically Endangered

Life form: Deciduous tree

Flower color: White with purple base

Flowering Time at SFBG: Early spring

Height: 11 m

Magnificent Magnolia Facts: An example of the rarest magnolia in the Garden, Magnolia zenii is listed by the IUCN Red List as Critically Endangered. Only a few dozen plants were found when they were discovered in China in 1931. According to the IUCN Red List report, there is "only a single population [remaining] containing 18 individuals at the type locality on the north slopes of Mount Baohua." This location is a provincial reserve, and in 2020 and 2021 guardrails were put up around the remaining individuals. Additionally there have, been attempts at reintroducing the species into the wild. The Garden’s Magnolia zenii was received from the Arnold Arboretum from a cultivated plant of known wild origin from the Nanjing Botanical Garden.

Growing Conditions: Full sun in well drained, moist soil.

Botanical Description: Trees, to 11 m tall, to 30 cm d.b.h. Bark grayish white, smooth. Old twigs purple, sparsely lenticellate; young twigs green, glabrous; buds narrowly ovoid, apex slightly curved, long sericeous. Stipular scar 1/5-1/2 as long as petiole. Petiole 0.6-1.8 cm, at first villous; leaf blade obovate-oblong to oblong, 7-16 × 3-7 cm, membranous, abaxially pale green, adaxially green and glabrous, midvein and secondary veins with long curved trichomes, secondary veins 8-10 on each side of midvein, base broadly cuneate to obtuse, apex broadly rounded and with an acuminate tip. Peduncle 2-4 mm, with dense long trichomes. Flower buds ovoid. Flowers appearing before leaves, ca. 12 cm in diam., fragrant. Tepals 9, nearly spoon-shaped, 6.8-7.8 × 2.7-3.8 cm, apex rounded to slightly acuminate; inner tepals white but outside pale purplish red from base to middle and apically white, narrower and smaller. Stamens ca. 1.1 cm; filaments purple, ca. 4 mm; connective exserted and forming a mucro; anthers ca. 7 mm, thecae divergent, dehiscing introrsely. Gynoecium cylindric, ca. 2 cm; carpels ca. 4 mm; styles ca. 1 mm. Fruit cylindric, 5-7 cm; mature carpels suborbicular, tuberculate, apex obtuse. (Flora of China)