magnolia

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of numerous evergreen or deciduous trees and shrubs of the genus Magnolia of the Western Hemisphere and Asia, having aromatic twigs and large showy white, pink, purple, or yellow flowers.
2. n. The flower of any of these plants.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A genus of plants, type of natural order Magnoliaceœ and the tribe Magnolieœ, characterized by a sessile cone-shaped cluster of pistils, and two-ovuled persistent carpels which open down the back at maturity. They are trees or shrubs with entire alternate leaves, often evergreen, conduplicate in the bud, and then protected by membranous stipules, and large showy flowers which are solitary and terminal. The calyx consists of three deciduous sepals, and the corolla of six to twelve petals, usually white or purplish; and the stamens and pistils are numerous. The flowers are generally fragrant, and the fruit is a spike, consisting of a number of follicles, from the openings of which the scarlet or brown seeds are suspended at maturity by long and slender threads. There are about 15 species, indigenous to subtropical Asia and the eastern part of North America. They are almost all very ornamental, and are frequently cultivated, M. conspicua is the yulan. M. grandiflora is the big laurel or bull-bay of the southern United States, a fine forest-tree, 60 or 80 feet high, evergreen, with fragrant flowers. M. macrophylla is the great-leafed cucumber, a less common tree of the same region. M. Umbrella is the umbrella-tree. M. acuminata, the cucumber-tree or mountain-magnolia, extends north to New York and Ohio. Another cucumber-tree is M. cordata, growing in the Southern States. M. glauca, a moderate-sized tree, or northward a shrub, grows in swamps from Massachusetts to Florida and Texas. It has globular fragrant flowers, 2 inches long, the leaves ever green in the south. It is variously named small or laurel magnolia, sweet-bay or white-bay, white laurel or swamplaurel; also beaver-tree and swamp-sassafras. The genus appears very early and very abundantly in the fossil state, over 50 species having been described. They range from the Middle Cretaceous to the Pliocene, being more numerous in the Cretaceous than in the Tertiary in both Europe and America, and also occurring in Greenland, in Australia, in Japan, and in Java.
2. n. [l. c] A plant of this genus.

Wiktionary

1. n. A tree or shrub in any species of the genus Magnolia, many with large flowers and simple leaves.
2. n. The flower of a magnolia tree.
3. n. A native or resident of the American state of Mississippi.
4. n. A creamy white colour, like that of some magnolia flowers.
5. adj. Of a creamy white colour, like that of some magnolia flowers.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) A genus of American and Asiatic trees, with aromatic bark and large sweet-scented whitish or reddish flowers.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any shrub or tree of the genus Magnolia; valued for their longevity and exquisite fragrant blooms
2. n. dried bark of various magnolias; used in folk medicine