睦南木莲 mu nan mu lian

Magnolia chevalieri (Dandy) V. S. Kumar.

Trees, to 10 m tall. Bark grayish brown. Perules, young twigs, leaf blade abaxial surfaces, petioles, and stipular scars with pale reddish brown appressed trichomes. Young twigs green. Stipular scar semi-orbicular to semi-elliptic, 1/10-1/5 as long as petiole. Petiole 1.5-3 cm; leaf blade obovate to narrowly obovate, 10-18(-20) × 3.5-5(-6.5) cm, leathery, adaxially glabrous, secondary veins 10-18 on each side of midvein, base cuneate, apex cuspidate to shortly caudate. Tepals 9, in 3 whorls; outer (2 or)3 tepals oblong-elliptic, ca. 7.5 × 3 cm, thin, abaxially greenish; tepals of inner 2 whorls white and slightly yellowish, obovate, fleshy, base gradually tapered and forming a long claw; inner tepals smaller and narrower. Stamens 6-9 mm; connective exserted and forming a ca. 1.5 mm mucro. Gynoecium terete, ca. 1.7 × 1 cm; carpels narrowly obovoid, ca. 6 mm, exposed part of apical ones shallowly furrowed; ovules 8-10 per carpel, stalked. Fruit ovoid to ellipsoid, 5-9 × ca. 4 cm. Fl. Feb-Apr, fr. Sep-Oct.

Forests. S Yunnan [N Laos, Vietnam].

This species is grown as an ornamental.