Magnolia trees come in many varieties

When the first blooms appeared on our magnolia tree, we were taken aback. My wife and I expected pink blooms tinged with white. We got solid bright purple blooms with petals resembling no magnolia tree with which we had any familiarity. It was a total surprise. This year we did get some white but it didn't count. It was snow.

Since planting our tree, now many years in the past, we have learned that magnolia trees come in many varieties with blooms in a multitude of colours. What we have appears to be some variety of purple magnolia—a magnolia liliiflora possibly.

We wondered why the garden centre was selling a magnolia unlike the majority of magnolias found in our region. On asking, we discovered that our tree is more winter hardy than many magnolias. This year this was a distinct advantage. Many magnolias are not well adapted to living in Ontario.

There is one native magnolia—the cucumber magnolia. It is named for the slight resemblance of its immature fruit to a cucumber. These native trees are on the endangered native plant list as there are only approximately 18 small populations in Ontario totally no more than 170 to 190 mature trees, plus saplings.