The base of this southern magnolia measures more than six metres around, thick enough that it would take several adults linking arms to circle it.
Photo: Paulo V. Araujo, Dias com Arvores
Southern Magnolia
Magnolia grandiflora
For a few weeks in early summer this tree opens cream white flowers the width of a dinner plate, lemon scented and finished within a couple of days. We map 20 of them, in 15 cities.
Magnolia grandiflora comes from the warm swamp forests of the American southeast and only reached Europe in the middle of the eighteenth century, which puts a hard ceiling on how old any of the European ones can be. The oldest here is Rome's, roughly 275 years, and it does not stand in a garden at all: it grows on the pavement of Via Corsini, outside the wall of the palace whose garden it was planted for. Padua's went in during 1786, the year Goethe came through the gate. Frederick Douglass planted two at Cedar Hill for his wife, on family testimony rather than a receipt. The leaves stay glossy and green all winter.
Porto
Twelve southern magnolias stand in a ring around the lake in the oldest public garden in Porto.
Photo: Paulo V. Araujo, Dias com Arvores
This garden holds 96 plane trees, 57 camellias and 13 southern magnolias, and only the magnolias are protected.
Seville
The best evidence for this tree's age is photographs it does not appear in.
Four metres seventy round is a great deal of magnolia.
Barcelona
This magnolia is probably the biggest of its kind in Barcelona, and it grows in a garden built for a maternity hospital that no longer delivers babies.
Photo: Josep Trepat Font (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Paris
This tree comes from the warm swamp forests of the American southeast, and it has grown to twelve metres in a small square off the Rue de Grenelle.
New York
New York has made exactly two trees official landmarks, and this southern magnolia is the only one still standing.
Lucca
Three metres twenty-three round the trunk and twenty-four metres tall, which is a great deal of magnolia.
Rome
Rome's oldest magnolia does not stand in a garden.
Washington DC
Frederick Douglass planted these two magnolias for his wife, or so his household always said.
Naples
Two Italian government registers list a magnolia at the same spot in the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, and they do not agree on its size.
Padua
This magnolia was planted in 1786, the same year Goethe came through the gate.
The cloister is named after the tree.
Photo: Tournasol7 (CC BY 4.0)
Buenos Aires
In bloom
These two magnolias are the oldest living thing on the block where Buenos Aires first taught medicine.
In bloom
Most old trees carry an estimated age.
Photo: Carlos Zito (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Caserta
Four metres forty around the trunk is a great deal of magnolia, and this one asks nobody for a ticket.
Bordeaux
When Bordeaux rebuilt its busiest square in 2021, the design added more than fifty new trees around the ones already standing.
Como
The villa's own website lists magnolias among the centuries-old trees of its park, and that is as precise as anyone has been about this one.
Pisa
Pisa's two oldest living trees went into the ground the same year, planted by the same man, in the same corner of the garden.
Explore by city: Porto · Seville · Barcelona · Paris · New York · Lucca · Rome · Washington DC · Naples · Padua · Buenos Aires · Caserta · Bordeaux · Como · every city · or browse all species.