Native Plants

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Tuesday - July 07, 2015

From: Parkersburg, WV
Region: Mid-Atlantic
Topic: Shrubs, Trees
Title: Magnolia in West Virginia ?
Answered by: Larry Larson

QUESTION:

Hello, is the Dwarf sweet magnolia a native shrub to WV?

ANSWER:

It doesn’t look like it – I searched in the Native Plant Information Network and also just a general web search and found no references to a Dwarf Sweet Magnolia.

I did find a lot of information on the Sweetbay Magnolia – Magnolia virginiana (Sweetbay). This tree/shrub is native to Atlantic coastal regions, this can be seen in the USDA link, but that also shows it is specifically not native to West Virginia.

I also found a good writeup from The Penn State Extension on the Sweetbay Magnolia. This indicated that there was a dwarf cultivar available [even further non-native] – but perhaps this is what you are thinking about!

From the Image Gallery

Sweetbay
Magnolia virginiana