Wada's Memory Magnolia - Magnolia kobus 'Wada's Memory'

Wada's Memory Magnolia Foliage
Leaves are simple, obovate, up to 6 inches long, providing outstanding yellow fall color [2]

Wada's Memory Magnolia is columnar in habit while young, growing to 30 feet and spreading as wide in maturity. A dense crown and coarse texture make this plant an outstanding specimen or street tree. 6 inch, fragrant white flowers appear before foliage in spring, giving way to pink fruits containing bright red seeds. [2]

The earliest flowering plants date back about 130 million years. According to Cronquist Evolution and Classification of Flowering Plants, the most primitive of all living angiosperms belong to the subclass Magnoliidae. This subclass contains several primitive plant families, including the water-lily family (Nymphaeaceae), buttercup family (Ranunculaceae) and Magnoliaceae.

Plants in the magnolia family have the following characteristics:

Large flowers with numerous tepals
Numerous spirally arranged stamens at the base of a conelike receptacle bearing numerous spirally arranged carpels. At maturity the carpels develop into a woody, conelike aggregate of seed-bearing follicles. Each seed has a fleshy red outer layer (aril) and hangs from its follicle by a threadlike stalk. Other primitive floral characteristics are radial symmetry or actinomorphic (floral parts similar in size & shape), perfect (with functional androecium and gynoecium), complete (with all 4 floral parts: calyx, corolla, androecium & gynoecium), and floral axis (receptacle) elongated. The latter characteristic is clearly visible in the magnolia blossom. With all the woody, spirally arranged carpels (follicles), this axis truly resembles a conelike structure.

Wada's Memory Magnolia, from a planting, is 10 years old

Figure 1.
Hardiness zone map courtesy the Arbor Day Foundation*