Magnolia Drive

Magnolia Drive, dating from 1972, was constructed through the former nursery land of Duncan and Davies Ltd where many fine magnolia trees had been preserved to beautify the subdivision.

Magnolia is a large genus of more than 200 flowering plants. It is named after French botanist Pierre Magnol.

Magnolias grow very well in Taranaki. The soil and its residual moisture promote the health and vigour of these fine trees.

The Jury family of Tikorangi have been involved with the breeding and selection of magnolias. Despite raising and trialling hundreds of contenders, they have chosen only a dozen for release. They are very picky, because magnolias are garden plants "for the long haul. To deserve a new name, a selection must be a breakthrough, a major improvement on what is already available".

Magnolia is an ancient genus. Apparently they were on the planet before there were bees, so it is theorised that the flowers evolved to encourage pollination by beetles. To avoid damage from pollinating beetles, the carpels of magnolia flowers are extremely tough.

Another aspect of magnolias that implies an ancient state is that the flower bud is enclosed in a bract. The perianth parts are not separated into distinct sepals and petals, and are called tepals. Magnolia shares this tepal characteristic with several other ancient flowering plants.

The natural distribution of the magnolia species is disjunct over its range, with a main centre in east and Southeast Asia and a secondary centre in eastern North America, Central America, the West Indies, and some species in South America.

In 1703, in his published Genera, Charles Plumier described a flowering tree from the island of Martinique. He gave the tree the genus name Magnolia, after Pierre Magnol.

Carolus Linnaeus, who was familiar with Plumier's Genera, adopted the genus name Magnolia in 1735 in his first edition of Systema naturae.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.