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Botanical Name: Magnolia grandiflora ‘TMGH’ [Alta®]
Common Name: Alta Southern Magnolia
Campus: Crosslands
Notable Feature: A southern magnolia known for its elegant upright and extremely compact habit; it has proved easy to root and transplant.
Habit: Evergreen, narrowly columnar when young and becoming a little broader with age but still maintaining its dense form which can be attributed to its tight branching pattern. Matures to 15 to 20’ tall and 5 to 8’ wide. Hardy in Zones 6-10.
Foliage: Evergreen leaves are narrower than the species, a deep green, extremely glossy, and covered with a rusty brown pubescence (indumentum) beneath. Leaves are 6 to 8” long and 1 ½ to 2 ½” wide.
Flower: Creamy white, strongly sweet-scented flowers are produced singly and continuously for 2 months or more depending upon plant’s age. Each cup-shaped flower is 8 to 10” in diameter with 8 petal-like tepals, blooming in late spring to midsummer.
Fruit: Rusty red-brown and cone-like, splitting open to reveal bright orange-red seeds.
Interesting Fact: Found as a chance seedling of a columnar variety called ‘Hasse’ in 1993. Its inventor Thomas Julian Strickland noticed among other ‘Hasse’ magnolias a plant of a different shape and with a dense, fibrous root system. It was patented in 1998 as ‘TMGH’ under PP #11,612.