Magnolia figo 'Port Wine'

Magnolia figo, the banana shrub, is one of those old Southern garden treasures that scent a whole spring evening, and 'Port Wine' is a fine, deep-colored form. Long grown under the name Michelia figo and only lately folded into the genus Magnolia, the plant makes a large, dense, lustrous evergreen shrub or small tree, handsome in leaf all year but grown, above all, for the perfume.

The flowers give the shrub its common name. Small, cupped, and creamy yellow, each bloom of 'Port Wine' is stained and edged with maroon, and the whole plant breathes a rich, unmistakable fragrance of ripe banana on warm days from mid to late spring. The scent travels on the air rather than waiting at the nose, so a single shrub can perfume a courtyard, a doorway, or a stretch of path.

Banana shrub belongs to the magnolia family, Magnoliaceae, and hails from China, where the species has been cultivated for centuries. In the American South the plant was a cherished dooryard shrub of old gardens, passed along and planted by the porch, though it has grown scarce in the nursery trade, which makes a well-grown 'Port Wine' something of a find. The genus Magnolia honors Pierre Magnol, the seventeenth-century French botanist of Montpellier.

Give banana shrub a spot in sun to light shade with fertile, moist, well-drained soil, and place the plant where the fragrance will be enjoyed: beside a door, a patio, a bench, or a walk. The dense evergreen habit makes a fine informal screen or backdrop, and the shrub takes well to light shaping. In the warm zones where the plant is hardy, few evergreens give so much scent for so little trouble.