Botanical Essays from Kent by Cooperrider Tom S.;Taft Hope;Taft Hope;

Author:Cooperrider, Tom S.;Taft, Hope;Taft, Hope;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Kent State University Press

Magnolia Gardens north of Henderson Hall, Kent State University campus. Japanese magnolias in bloom in mid-April (Photograph by Bob Christy)

University administrators Lowell Croskey and Chester Williams secured approval for the project, including for the location of the site. Because the area is low, drainage pipes were laid in parts of it. In addition, we built substantial flat-topped hills on which to plant the trees, elevating them above the water table. Russell Foldessey, manager of the grounds department, provided the heavy equipment and labor needed to lay the drainage pipes, construct the hills, and plant the larger trees. Chris Rizzo supervised all the planting and did much of it himself.

The plants are now about twenty-five years old and have reached flowering maturity. Most of the species bloom in the spring months of April and May, and most have fragrant flowers. The Ohio and other North American species in the Magnolia Gardens are described in Flora of North America.4 The Asian species and hybrids are described in Hortus Third.5

NOMENCLATURE AND CLASSIFICATION

Plants have been given names in every human language. As our contemporary civilization evolved, plant species came to have two different kinds of names: a single scientific name in Latin used in formal science, such as Magnolia acuminata, and one or more common or vernacular names in the modern languages of everyday life, such as cucumber magnolia.

Some of the magnolias provide examples of a frequent phenomenon in plants, the occurrence of a hybrid between two species. A multiplication sign inserted in the middle of a scientific name, for example, Magnolia × loebneri, indicates that the plant is an interspecific hybrid resulting from the cross of two species, in this case Magnolia kobus × Magnolia stellata.

In order to deal with the half-million plant species in the earth’s flora, botanists arrange them in groups, using a classification system with seven principal ranks. The ranks, in descending sequence, are kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. The number of ranks can be doubled by creating seven more with the prefix sub-, for example, subkingdom, subphylum, subclass, and so on down to subspecies. Each rank has a Latin scientific name.

The plants in the Magnolia Gardens all belong to a subclass with the scientific name Magnoliidae, an assemblage that includes magnolias and their close relatives. This is a group of unusual importance because they are thought to be among the most primitive of all living flowering plants. Most members are tropical, but those in the Kent State campus garden are hardy in the temperate zone.

NATIVE OHIO SPECIES

Today, in a small area, visitors can see all the woody members of the subclass Magnoliidae native to Ohio. These species, eight in all, are listed at the beginning of the Seventh Catalog of the Vascular Plants of Ohio.6

Heading the list are the four Ohio species of the magnolia family. All are deciduous trees, that is, ones that shed their leaves each fall. Cucumber magnolia (Magnolia acuminata), also called cucumber-tree, is native throughout eastern Ohio and is the only true magnolia native to the Kent area.

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