Southern Magnolia Moving North - Researcher Finds 500 Wild Trees Near Chapel Hill, NC

[hatrack]

Scarlett O’Hara herself would likely be scandalized by what researchers found when scouring a plot of central North Carolina forest outside Chapel Hill. Jennifer Gruhn was looking for Southern magnolias, one of the most enduring symbols of the American South (besides Scarlett herself, of course), and the state flower of both Mississippi and Louisiana.

The scandal was that she found them — no fewer than 500 of the magnificent trees, with their dark green leaves and spectacularly fragrant blossoms — in an abundance unexpected for a location so far north. And as with so many changes in the natural world lately, Gruhn, a biology graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis, thinks climate change may be at least partly responsible.

Writing in the June issue of Southeastern Naturalist, Gruhn and her co-author Peter White, of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, point to average temperatures some 2.7°F higher, and a growing season several weeks longer, than it was a few decades ago.

The garden-savvy reader will note that Southern magnolias can be found in the actual North as well, on the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon Line. Envious Yankees have been planting cold-tolerant hybrid magnolias for years (they’ve also been planting an entirely different type of magnolia, with lighter-green leaves; these have never minded colder weather). But the trees Gruhn found were growing wild, so it’s still somewhat surprising to find them thriving so far from home. he garden-indifferent reader might wonder what difference it all makes — and for a single species, it might not. But lots of other tree species appear to be headed north as well, including American basswood, yellow birch, black ash, big tooth aspen, and sugar maple — the last of which may move entirely out of Vermont and into Canada in coming years, making “Vermont Maple Syrup” an archaic term.

EDIT

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/as-the-climate-warms-magnolias-move-north/

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I just sent the link to My Favorit Wingnut,

who is of course a GW denier.

[xchrom]

2. The Magnolias are coming! Nt

[Odin2005]

3. People are starting to plant sugar maples, ginkos, and other zone 4b plants here in Fargo

We used to be on the edge of zone 3b and 4a and those plants were not hardy up here.

[hatrack]

4. Ginkos and Sugar Maples in Fargo??!!??

Jesus . . . .

[Odin2005]

5. Yup. I was shocked.

:wow:

[NickB79]

8. Yeah, the Twin Cities has become a pretty solid zone 5 now

Even during the "real" winter of 2010, we only saw -20F for a season low.

The plus side is that, if I'm lucky, I'll be the first Minnesotan to win a blue ribbon for pawpaw and persimmon fruits at the State Fair, mainly because I don't know of anyone else growing them in their yards yet except me :-)

[Odin2005]

9. Mmmm! sounds yummy!

[Zambero]

6. There are a few Southern Magnolias in Boise

Slow growing and getting a bit of leaf burn over the winter, but hanging in there. Trachycarpus ("windmill") palms are also showing up in a few spots. I'm not sure whether the emergence of lower latitude and subtropical species is more indicative of a warmer more "favorable" climate, or a willingness on the part of some to push the envelope and experiment with what would be considered exotic species in a colder region. Likely both.

[madrchsod]

7. here in northern illinois we have gained almost two zones in 25 yrs...