The Southern Magnolia or "bull bay" is one of the best-known trees in the State. No other in our forest excels it in the combined beauty of the leaves and the flowers. Occurring naturally in the rich hammock soils and on the border of river swamps and pine-barren ponds, it has been widely cultivated for its ornamental value. In its natural habitat, it attains heights generally 65-100 feet and trunk diameters of up three feet and over. The dense pyramidal head, or crown, is made up of numerous small spreading branches and branchlets. Its range is over the state as far south in the peninsula as DeSoto County.

The bark is gray to light brown. The leaves are evergreen, thick, leathery, elliptical or oval, dark green and shiny above, rusty or silvery beneath, and mostly from four to eight inches long and two to four inches wide, with prominent midribs. They remain on the tree and quickly become deciduous as the new years leaves emerge.

The large handsome flowers appear at intervals during the summer. They are very attractive with their large showy cream white petals surrounding a splash of bright purple in the center (from the stamens) and their pleasing fragrance. The "sweet magnolia" of the South well deserves the place given it in story and song.

The fruit consists of a rounded or oval head from two to four inches long containing many seed, each enclosed in a sheath. These open in a bright red display dangling on slender threads.

The wood is moderately heavy and hard, and of a creamy color. It is used for ornamental purpose and some furniture.

The largest Southern Magnolia reported in the United States is 122 feet tall, and has a trunk diameter of over six feet. Helen Keller studied nature by climbing trees in the yard of her Tuscumbia, Alabama, home. The towering Helen Keller Southern Magnolia may have been one of those trees. She wrote of her tree-climbing in a memoir titled, "The Story of My Life."