Magnolia grandifloraL.

southern magnolia

WFO wfo-0000233174 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Magnolia grandiflora, photographed by Joseph Aubert
fig. a Joseph Aubert, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-29 / obs. 201801274
Magnolia grandiflora, photographed by Joseph Aubert
fig. b Joseph Aubert, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200389353
Magnolia grandiflora, photographed by Nonbinary-Naturalist
fig. c Nonbinary-Naturalist, CC0 1.0 / obs. 194926455
Magnolia grandiflora, photographed by Mike Tilley
fig. d Mike Tilley, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195784112
Magnolia grandiflora, photographed by Nonbinary-Naturalist
fig. e Nonbinary-Naturalist, CC0 1.0 / obs. 197137672
Magnolia grandiflora, photographed by asiminamacrophylla
fig. f asiminamacrophylla, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 198634756
Magnolia grandiflora, photographed by Matthew Gerke
fig. g Matthew Gerke, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199864379
Magnolia grandiflora, photographed by Nonbinary-Naturalist
fig. h Nonbinary-Naturalist, CC0 1.0 / obs. 194507497

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 1,023 observations

Peak flowering in May, from 1,023 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 42 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Magnolia angustifolia Millais
  • Magnolia elliptica (W.T.Aiton) Link
  • Magnolia exoniensis Millais
  • Magnolia ferruginea hort. ex W.Watson
  • Magnolia ferruginea W.Watson
  • Magnolia foetida (L.) Sarg.
  • Magnolia foetida f. margarettae Ashe
  • Magnolia foetida f. parvifolia Ashe
  • Magnolia galissoniensis Millais
  • Magnolia glabra P.Parm.
  • Magnolia gloriosa Millais
  • Magnolia grandiflora f. galissoniensis K.Koch
  • Magnolia grandiflora f. lanceolata (Aiton) Rehder
  • Magnolia grandiflora var. angustifolia Loudon
  • Magnolia grandiflora var. elliptica Aiton
  • Magnolia grandiflora var. elliptica W.T.Aiton
  • Magnolia grandiflora var. exoniensis Loudon
  • Magnolia grandiflora var. ferruginea Sims
  • Magnolia grandiflora var. lanceolata Aiton
  • Magnolia grandiflora var. lanceolata W.T.Aiton
  • Magnolia grandiflora var. obovata Aiton
  • Magnolia grandiflora var. obovata W.T.Aiton
  • Magnolia grandiflora var. praecox Loudon
  • Magnolia grandiflora var. rotundifolia Sweet ex Loudon

and 18 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.