Magnolia stellata (star magnolia, "Shidekobushi")

Japanese name: シデコブシ （幣辛夷、四手辛夷）
Scientific name: Magnolia stellata

[Overview]
A deciduous shrub or small tree about 5 m tall, found around wetlands in low mountains and hills.
Leaves are simple and alternate, oblong to oblanceolate, 5–10 cm long and 1–3 cm wide, with a rounded tip.
The upper surface is depressed and wrinkled along the veins, and there are hairs on the veins of the underside and on the leaf stalk.
The leaf margins are entire and slightly wavy.
The leaf stalk is 0.2–0.5 cm long.
Stipule scars encircle the branch at the base of the leaf stalk.
The flowers open before the leaves emerge.
The flowers are about 7–10 cm across, white or pale pink, and fragrant.
There are 12–24 petals, 5–10 cm long and 0.7–1.2 cm wide, which are wavy.
The flower buds are several times larger than the leaf buds and are covered with long, silvery-white soft hairs.
The fruit is a follicle, an irregular oblong 3–7 cm long; when ripe it splits open and the red seeds hang from white thread-like tissue.

[Uses]
The buds are called shin'i and are used as a crude drug.

[Cultivation]
Propagate from seed or by grafting.
When grown from seed, it can take 10 years or more to flower.
It prefers sunny, well-drained, fertile soil with moderate moisture.
It dislikes dry places.
Mature trees are difficult to transplant.
Take care that it does not dry out; for potted plants, water thoroughly when the soil surface dries, and for plants in the ground, rainfall is sufficient unless summer brings a long spell of sunny weather and the soil dries out.
Apply organic fertilizer in winter and also after flowering as a thank-you fertilizer.
Pests and diseases are relatively few, but scale insects and longhorn beetles occur.

[Notes]
The Japanese name compares the long, narrow petals to the paper streamers (shide) hung from sacred straw ropes (shimenawa) and the like.

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