Sweetbay Magnolia

Magnolia virginiana

Also known as Swamp Magnolia, Laurel Magnolia, Beavertree, Swamp Sassafras

At a glance

Family

Magnoliaceae (Magnolia family)

Type

Semi-evergreen to deciduous flowering tree or large shrub

Parts used

Bark (traditionally), fragrant flowers and leaves (ornamental and aromatic uses)

Size

10 to 35 feet in northern gardens, reaching up to 60 feet as a true tree in southern swamps

Bloom

Late spring through summer, creamy white cup-shaped flowers with a lemony, melon-like fragrance

Habitat

Swamps, bogs, wet woodlands, and pond margins along the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains

Acquisition

Grow or buy

This plant in HerbSense

Key benefits

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Traditional bitter digestive tonic

Historic fever remedy

Fragrant native shade tree

Attracts pollinators and beavers

Traditional uses

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Long before ornamental nurseries prized it for its lemon-scented blossoms, the aromatic bark of the sweetbay magnolia was steeped and simmered by rural Southern households as a bitter tonic to settle the stomach and stir a flagging appetite. During the Civil War, when the Union blockade cut off shipments of imported cinchona bark, Confederate field medicine turned to native magnolia barks, sweetbay among them, as a homegrown stand in for treating recurring chills and fevers. It never carried the prestige of quinine, but in swampy backcountry parishes it was often what was on hand, and what worked well enough to matter. Today it survives mostly in old herbal records and in the memory of a tree that once stood in for medicine that couldn't be gotten.

How to grow & use it

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Pairs well with

✦Ginger
✦Chamomile
✦Sassafras

Substitutes

✦Magnolia officinalis bark (houpo)
✦Wild cherry bark

Choose it when

“For the swamp's own magnolia, lemon-scented and blooming quietly through the thick of a humid summer.”

Did you know?

Sweetbay magnolia earned the old country name beavertree because beavers seek out its soft wood and bark over almost anything else nearby, sometimes girdling whole young trees in a single season.

Safety

This tree is not known to be toxic, but bark should only be taken from pruned branches, never stripped from a living trunk.