Yellow Magnolia 'Butterflies' Studies

Buds on a branch from by botanical sketchbook.

 

A heavy frost was predicted in my area for Monday morning, so on Sunday afternoon I cut a small branch with some buds from my yellow hybrid Magnolia 'Butterflies' to study and paint. I rarely get to paint this lovely flower from life, since most of the time the flowers get blighted by frosts before I have a chance to paint them.

The first sketch above was done in my botanical journal (the second notebook in this series) with Copic pens and colored with watercolor pencils just after the bud had shed its scales, which is the technical term for the furry outer covering on the buds.

 

The flower in three stages, three media.

 

The following day the first bud began to open, and I captured its progress in a larger sketchbook, showing the petals starting to unfurl. For the sketch on the upper left I used only colored pencils. 

On the third day, the petals (technically tepals) were completely unfurled, and center of the flower was visible, with its pinkish stamens still tightly closed, while the greenish pistils in the center are extended. In nature, an insect would visit the flower and deposit pollen from another flower on the pistils at this point, while they are receptive. The flower would close up for the night, perhaps trapping the insect inside. Indoors, of course, there weren't any insects available for pollination, but the flower's exquisite lemony perfume advertised its receptivity. An added bonus to painting these magnolias!

For the rendition on the middle right, I used only conventional watercolors. Another bud lower on the branch was starting to unfurl, and I drew it lightly in pencil on the lower part of my paper.

On the fourth day, the petals of the first flower had begun to fade to a pale cream, but now the stamens in the center were unfurled all around.  At this stage, in nature, the pollinating insect would be covered with the pollen and when the flower re-opened in the morning, the insect would be released to visit and pollinate another flower. 

This is the strategy the flower uses to avoid self-pollination. The version on the lower left was done with watercolor pencils only, connecting the opening bud that I'd drawn the day before to the upper flower.

By the fifth day, the flower was completely spent: the tepals had turned brown and were falling off. Such is the short-lived glory of a magnolia flower!

I read that this hybrid variety of magnolia was bred as a cross between Magnolia acuminata and Magnolia Denudata. M. acuminata is our native Cucumber magnolia from the Appalachian area, one of the largest trees of the American species. M. denudata is an Asian tree known as the Yulan magnolia. My tree has grown to about seven feet or eight in height and canopy, in time it should eventually reach 12 to 15 feet in size, perhaps a bit more. It's a lovely tree even if the flowers often get frost-bitten!