Our 25 year old Magnolia platypetala has been spectacular over the last few weeks, until our recent lows in the teens. Not to worry, as the unopened flower buds should be fine. The fuzzy brown buds, which are beautiful in their own right, open to large, fragrant white flowers. Taxonomically, it’s often listed as a subspecies of Magnolia maudiae, but other than also flowering in winter, it has no resemblance to our specimens of Magnolia maudiae. So far, our plant has endured several winters in the single digits F.
“Taxonomically, it’s often listed as a subspecies of Magnolia maudiae,“?
JCR lists this as a subspecies of M. cavaleriei (var. platypetala)
So there doesn’t appear to be hybrids with platypetala or cavaleriei? But Eternal Spring is a hybrid with maudiae as a parent. Maybe remaking Eternal Spring with platypetala will lead to a more winter hardy hybrid?
We see no reason to include it in either M. maudiae or M. cavalerei, but here’s a note from Trees and Shrubs On-Line
The complex which includes M. maudiae and M. cavaleriei is taxonomically challenging, and requires further work by botanists in the field (R. Figlar pers. comm. 2022). The plant first described as Michelia platypetala Hand.-Mazz. has sometimes been included within Magnolia cavaleriei as var. platypetala (Hand.-Mazz.) N.H. Xia (Xia, Liu & Nooteboom 2008). However, we provisionally treat it as M. maudiae var. platypetala on the advice of Richard Figlar (pers. comm. 2022).