COVER ILLUSTRATION. Wiesener's Magnolia, also known as Watson's Magnolia, photographed at Harcourt Arboretum, part of Oxford University's Botanic Garden
The flowers of this magnolia, with their huge upward-facing ivory petals, rosette of rosy-crimson stamens, and strong scent, reminiscent of pineapple, attracted much admiration when first seen in Europe at the International Paris Exposition in 1889. The plant, now known to be a natural hybrid between Magnolia hypoleuca and Magnolia sieboldii, had been brought to Paris from Japan where similar specimens had long been prized by horticulturalists for their great beauty.
When the botanist and plant-hunter Joseph Hooker, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, saw the flowering magnolia at the Paris Exposition, he was determined to add it to the collections at Kew. In 1891, he published an illustration and description of his new acquisition in Curtis's Botanical Magazine and wrote 'It is with considerable hesitation that I propose the subject of this plate as a new species of Magnolia.' He named the Kew plant Magnolia watsonii in honour of William Watson, the Assistant Curator, 'to whose skill and care the Botanical Magazine is indebted for the flowering of so many of the interesting plants depicted in its plates'.
But unbeknown to Hooker, the plant he saw at the 1889 Paris Exposition was not the only specimen of this magnolia attracting the attention of botanical experts in the city. While the Paris Exposition was in progress, a similar plant was being exhibited at the Trocadero. This specimen was bought by M. Wiesener, a landowner from Fontenay-aux-Roses. He planted it in his garden, and, perhaps conscious of its rarity, showed it to the botanist Elie-Abel Carrière. Like Hooker, Carrière realized that the magnolia was a new species. He published his description of the plant in Revue Horticole in 1890 and named it Magnolia wieseneri.
For nearly 90 years the name that Joseph Hooker had bestowed on this oriental hybrid was the one generally used by horticulturalists. Whether this was due to Hooker's pre-eminence as a botanist, or to the fact that M. Wiesener's specimen died without being propagated, is unclear. Magnolia watsonii was given an Award of Merit by the Royal Horticultural Society in 1917. But according to rules laid down by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, the priority principle dictates that as Carrière was the first to publish his proposed name for the new species, Magnolia wieseneri is the correct scientific name.
Catharine R. Gale
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