Magnolia virginiana var. pumila

Among the sweetbay magnolias there is a curious dwarf that most references overlook, though at Woodlanders we feel the plant deserves proper recognition. This form, Magnolia virginiana var. pumila, grows wild on the frequently burned pinelands of the southern Coastal Plain, and looks to be an adaptation to that fiery world: the plant stays small, begins flowering while very young and low, and spreads slowly by underground runners into a modest colony.

Every sweetbay carries the same quiet gifts, and the dwarf is no exception. The semi-evergreen leaves are glossy green above and silvered beneath, flashing when the wind turns them, and the creamy, cupped summer flowers pour out the clean lemon fragrance for which the sweetbay is loved, remarkable perfume from so small a plant. The genus Magnolia honors Pierre Magnol, the seventeenth-century French botanist, and the epithet pumila simply means dwarf.

The small, suckering habit is exactly what makes this dwarf useful. Where a full sweetbay would overwhelm, var. pumila settles into a low, fragrant, colony-forming shrub of eight to ten feet at most, and the fire-adapted constitution means the plant takes hard pruning in stride, resprouting cheerfully after being cut back. For a moist, acidic border, a rain garden, or a naturalistic native planting, few small shrubs give so much scent for so little space.

Site the dwarf sweetbay in moist, acidic soil in sun to part shade, at a pond edge, along a damp path, or massed in a native border where the fragrance can be enjoyed and the slow colony allowed to knit together. Like all sweetbays the plant tolerates wet ground that defeats other shrubs, feeds pollinators with the summer flowers, and hosts the caterpillars of the eastern tiger swallowtail. A rare and characterful native that Woodlanders is proud to keep in cultivation.