Species
+

Magnolia virginiana L.

Beaver-wood, Laurel Magnolia, Laurier Doux, Swamp Bay

Climate known 64 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Magnolia virginiana, most commonly known as sweetbay magnolia, or merely sweetbay, is a member of the magnolia family, Magnoliaceae. It was the first magnolia to be scientifically described under modern rules of botanical nomenclature, and is the type species of the genus Magnolia; as Magnolia is also the type genus of all flowering plants (magnoliophytes), this species in a sense typifies all flowering plants. Magnolia virginiana is very flood tolerant, it is also drought tolerant. The species is found in wetlands.

Text from Wikipedia, “Magnolia virginiana”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Magnolia

Magnolia is a large genus of about 210 to 340 flowering plant species in the subfamily Magnolioideae of the family Magnoliaceae. The natural range of Magnolia species is disjunct, with a main center in east, south and southeast Asia and a secondary center in South America, Central America, the West Indies, and some species in eastern North America.

Text from Wikipedia, “Magnolia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Magnoliaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York +16
Wild records
1832 in range· 519 open

At a glance

Warmest month
31°C
Jul, mean day; nights 23 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1245mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 134 mm (CHELSA)
Light
15–40DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to September and December in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1245 mm a year, wettest July at 134 mm, driest February at 86 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 40 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -3.7 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Magnolia glauca var. longifolia Pursh; Magnolia glauca var. pumila Nutt.; Magnolia virginiana var. virginiana.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to September and December in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (890 mm of 1245 mm) takes 8 months, March to September and December. Mean temperature moves 19.6 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: September to March and June.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1245 mm a year, wettest July at 134 mm, driest February at 86 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1245 mm a year at the habitat, 890 mm of it March to September and December. Wettest month July at 134 mm, driest February at 86 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1133 mm to 1605 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 40 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 40 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 12, the highest 90th-percentile month 42).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -3.7 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -3.7 °C, the absolute minimum -14.7 °C, about 19 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 3.1 °C in January (across the envelope cells -3.0 °C to 11.0 °C), warmest day 30.9 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -3.7 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 56 to 61% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 12 °C in Jan to 31 °C in Jul; mean night from 3 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1245 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 1198 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -14.7 °C and the 99th-percentile day 34.6 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost34.6° 99th-percentile day (undated)-14.7° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250mm rainDLI 15–40RH 56–61 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1198 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C12 / 5–1914 / 6–2118 / 11–2322 / 17–2626 / 22–3030 / 26–3231 / 29–3230 / 28–3228 / 24–3023 / 18–2718 / 13–2413 / 7–21
Night °C3 / -3–115 / -2–128 / 2–1412 / 7–1717 / 12–2121 / 18–2423 / 20–2523 / 20–2520 / 16–2314 / 10–209 / 5–165 / -0–13
Rain mm90 / 68–13186 / 70–140108 / 92–15094 / 67–118101 / 75–126120 / 97–196134 / 107–198125 / 96–205111 / 92–17892 / 77–11587 / 58–12197 / 67–140
DLI17 / 14–2122 / 20–2629 / 27–3336 / 33–4040 / 37–4240 / 38–4138 / 38–4035 / 34–3730 / 28–3225 / 21–2819 / 15–2215 / 12–19
RH %58 / 56–5957 / 55–5956 / 55–5956 / 54–5958 / 56–6160 / 58–6361 / 58–6461 / 59–6460 / 58–6358 / 57–6058 / 56–5958 / 56–59

Each figure is the median across the 1198 grid cells holding the 1658 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1099:2057 (35.025, -77.125). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -14.7 °C, 1st-percentile night -3.7 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.6 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 1198 distinct grid cells holding the 1658 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1099:2057 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 35.00_-76.875, lapse-corrected +2 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 9 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeMassachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, District of Columbia, Cuba
Kew's description“shrub or tree” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker39.26, -75.473 · in the densest population, 412 records (22% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1832 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 519 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 5 km away. 16 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 174 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 1832 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Magnolia virginianaMagnolia virginianaMagnolia virginianaMagnolia virginianaMagnolia virginianaMagnolia virginianaMagnolia virginianaMagnolia virginiana

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (5); (c) Peter A. Greenberg, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Magnolia virginiana, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Ability of stress‐related volatiles to attract and induce attacks by Xylosandrus germanus and other ambrosia beetles
Christopher M. Ranger, Michael E. Reding, Anand B. Persad, Daniel A. Herms (2009) · Agricultural and Forest Entomology
Automatic discrimination of fine roots in minirhizotron images
Guang Zeng, Stanley T. Birchfield, Christina E. Wells (2007) · New Phytologist
Chemical Divergence in Floral Scents of Magnolia and Allied Genera (Magnoliaceae)
Hiroshi Azuma, Masao Toyota, Yoshinori Asakawa, Ryohei Yamaoka (1997) · Plant Species Biology
Drought and Flood Stress Effects on Plant Development and Leaf Water Relations of Five Taxa of Trees Native to Bottomland Habitats
Lenore J. Nash, William R. Graves (1993) · Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science
Bioactive neolignans from the leaves of Magnolia virginiana
James K. Nitao, Muraleedharan G. Nair, Deborah L. Thorogood, Kelly S. Johnson (1991) · Phytochemistry
Ambrosia Beetle (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) Responses to Volatile Emissions Associated With Ethanol-InjectedMagnolia virginiana
Christopher M. Ranger, Michael E. Reding, Peter B. Schultz, Jason B. Oliver (2012) · Environmental Entomology
Forests of Small Stream Bottoms in the Coastal Plain of Southwestern Alabama
Stanley R. Gemborys, Earl J. Hodgkins (1971) · Ecology
Interruption of the Semiochemical-Based Attraction of Ambrosia Beetles to Ethanol-Baited Traps and Ethanol-Injected Trap Trees by Verbenone
Christopher M. Ranger, Patrick C. Tobin, Michael E. Reding, Alicia M. Bray (2013) · Environmental Entomology

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Magnolia 12 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 69 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.