THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 17, 1996 TAG: 9606150037
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LAWRENCE MADDRY
LENGTH: 78 lines
YOU CAN TALK about your summer solstice, or the first vine-ripened tomato in your garden, as signs that summer has arrived in the South.
But I mark it by the first magnolia blossom to open and send its cloying perfume floating dreamily through the moonlit night. Or better still, the sight of a magnolia blossom spinning ever-so-slightly in a water-filled Chinese bowl placed on a dining room table gleaming under rubs of polish that smell as lemon-limoney as the flower.
There is simply nothing more southern than that.
Who among us is not linked to that tree - magnolia grandiflora - in memory. What child of the South has not climbed its limbs and been fascinated by the solitude of the chamber within - where branches laden with glossy leaves poke in all directions, shutting out the sunlight like a green tepee.
It was the preferred place of hiding during a game of hide and seek. And as I grew older, like boys everywhere in the South, I played with pals, using the seed cones as hand grenades.
Much of my growing up was done in an old house with an exposed side porch that had a cranky, green swing suspended from its roof. From June until September, the porch was a routine gathering place for the family from a half-hour after supper until bedtime.
A magnolia tree grew about 50 feet from the porch where we sipped Cokes from ice-filled glasses, legs extended from rattan furniture, the creak of the swing marking the lazy beat of time.
On warm summer nights, when the fragrance of magnolia blooms drifts to my nostrils, I think of those simpler times, of the stupid jokes we told, the gossip we shared. . . and those moments when one or more of us turned serious and expressed the innermost longings of our troubled hearts.
That sweet scent is a thread linking all of us with the past, a calming and fragrant benediction, like the soft fall of moonlight on the bare shoulder of my aunt or mother, on that porch, in that distant time.
That old magnolia, towering 60 feet in the air, seemed a part of us, almost a member of the family. I can see it now. There were times when it was so festooned with the creamy, globular blossoms, it appeared to be strung with moon lanterns.
Magnolia grandiflora reaches its northern limits here in Hampton Roads. It can be found farther north, but the numbers are diminished. Those proud magnolias can be found in each of our cities, but there is a truly remarkable specimen on Magnolia Avenue in Norfolk.
Magnolia Avenue. There must be one of those in a play by Tennessee Williams. Or should be. By now nearly everyone knows that trees bordering Magnolia Avenue were fetched to Norfolk and planted by Lt. Andrew Weir and his wife Mary Allen (a descendent of patriot Ethan Allen) in the 1800s. They came from Weir's home state of Mississippi - The Magnolia State.
Those trees were originally planted on both sides of a road leading to the Weir home. The last of the Weirs died in 1933. T.M. Bellamy, the developer of Larchmont in the early 1900s, had the vision to run one of his streets between the double line of trees and name it Magnolia Avenue.
But the remarkable specimen is at 936 Magnolia Avenue. It is designated a state champion by the Virginia Forestry Association. According to Gary Carmean - the Chesapeake science teacher who, with Gary Williamson, has earned a national reputation for finding champion trees - that magnolia has a circumference of 17 and one-half feet, is 65 feet tall, and has a 74-foot crown spread. It shares championship honors with a 61-foot magnolia grandiflora with an 87-foot crown at Chestnut Hill Farm in Surry County.
Magnolias have gone out of fashion in some quarters because the flower is associated with a dreamy, romantic, non-realistic view of our region.
Back in 1971, a covey of liberal southerners chose You Can't Eat Magnolias as the title of a book of essays urging reform in the South. A stupid title. The love of magnolias goes beyond differences in color, station or income.
Richard Wright, the author of Black Boy, penned a stirring indictment of the segregated South in this century. But as a Mississipian, he would not deny his region's inviting physical charms.
He wrote of ``the drenching hospitality in the pervading smell of sweet magnolias.''
Wrightly said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
JIM WALKER/The Virginian-Pilot
Norfolk's remarkable specimen, a state champion, is 65 feet tall,
with a 74 feet crown spread. by CNB