Trees or shrubs with alternate and petioled leaves; flowers large, terminal and solitary with numerous stamens and pistils.
Buds silky white pubescent; leaves entire; fruit fleshy, dehiscent 1 Magnolia.
Buds glabrous; leaves lobed; fruit a cone of dry carpels, indehiscent 2 Liriodendron.
=Magnolia acuminàta= Linnæus. Cucumber Tree. Plate 66. Large trees with furrowed bark which is gray and much resembles the tulip tree except the ridges are shallower and closer; twigs downy at first, becoming glabrous or nearly so and a light to a cherry brown by the end of the season; leaves oval, average blades 15-22 cm. long, rounded to truncate at the base, abruptly short-pointed, pubescent on both sides at first, becoming glabrous above, and remaining pubescent beneath, rarely entirely glabrous; flowers about 6 cm. long, bell-shaped, pale yellowish-green; fruit cylindrical, 5-7 cm. long, 1-2 cm. diameter, the large scarlet seeds begin to push out of their receptacle in September; wood light, soft, not strong, close-grained and durable.
=Distribution.=--North shore of Lake Erie, western New York, eastern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois and along the Appalachian Mountains to southern Alabama and west to Arkansas. It doubtless occurred in all or nearly all of the counties in southern Indiana south of a line drawn from Franklin to Knox Counties. It no doubt was extremely local. For instance a pioneer 81 years old who had always lived in Washington County told me that there were two trees on his farm near Pekin, and these were the only two trees he knew of in the vicinity. These trees were popular because the neighbors came for the fruit to put into whisky for making bitters which were a specific for all ailments. I have seen only a shrub on the Forest Reserve in Clark County. On a beech and sugar maple ridge about 4 miles northwest of Medora in Jackson County on the Geo. W. Scott farm two trees were still standing in 1915. Mr. Scott, a pioneer, said the species was found on the ridge for about 2 miles and that there were about a half dozen trees to the acre, and the largest was about a meter in diameter. It is known in two other places in this county. A tree is still standing in Lawrence County on the Sam Mitchell farm 2-1/2 miles south of Bedford. Mr. Mitchell is a pioneer and says that a few trees were found in the vicinity on the ridges. It has been reported for Franklin, Floyd and Jefferson Counties. There is hearsay evidence that it occurred in other counties.