The Verbenica magnolia (Magnolia x soulangiana Soulange-Bodin ‘Verbanica’)is a late flowering cultivar. The outside leafs of the flower are a rose color on the outside but fading to white at the apex. The inner and medium leafs are strap-shaped and usually rose tinted on the outside. This small tree is 20 – 25’ high.

Specimen Provenance:

Common name: Verbanicane Magnolia

Species Origin: This type plant is a hybrid between two Chinese species: Magnolia denudata and Magnolia liliiflora which originated in the garden of EtienneSoulange-Bodin, a French army officer, at Fromont, France from seeds borne by M. denudata and fertilized by pollen of M. liliifora; the hybrid first flowered in 1826. and is the first Magnolia garden-formed hybrid.

New Jersey Status: No USDA reference

Habit: Usually a distinctly upright multistemmed shrub in youth becoming a low branched tree with wide spreading branches forming a pyramidal to rounded outline at maturity; 20 – 30’ high with a variable spread, about as wide as high; trunk bole diameter 6”.

Habitat: Zones 4 -9.

Trunk/Stem: Bark is gray and smooth with grayish lenticels and characteristic sapsucker (woodpecker) damage.

Leaves: Deciduous, Simple, Alternate. Leaves are elliptic to obovate, entire, , 3 – 8” long and 4 ¼” wide, tapered at the base with rounded with a short sharp point (mucronate); leaf blade is dark green above and paler green finely pubescent below.

Flowers: Perfect. Flowers open from cylindrical buds. Flowers variable from goblet to cup or saucer shaped, 10” across with 9 white to pink or deep purple to pink tepals; the tepals have a deep pink flush at their base which fades to a pale streak at the tip; they emerge in spring to early summer before and with the leaves. The 6 inner tepals spread more or less widely; the 3 outer tepals are the smallest.

Fruits and seeds: The fruit is a cylindrical aggregate of follicles, 4” long, asymmetric, green ripening to pink. Late summer early autumn few fruits produced.

Characteristics: The cultivar ‘Verbanica’ is a late flowering form. The tepals are a rose color on the outside but fading to white at the apex. The inner and medium tepals are strap-shaped and usually rose tinted on the outside. This small tree is 20 – 25’ high.