Southern magnolia
Magnolia grandiflora
Vaucluse House
'The largest in the colony'
A pair of southern magnolias – one now fallen, one removed – in the pleasure garden at Vaucluse House were once reputed to be the largest and finest in the colony. A 1934 description by the Sydney Morning Herald’s garden writer is typical:
Two giant specimens that the statesman [William Charles Wentworth] planted in his bay garden are still the best magnolias that I know.
Together with native fig trees and other ornamental plantings, the magnolias formed a dramatically dark-leafed contrast to the light-toned sandstone Gothic Revival house and grey-green bushland covering the hillside beyond. This planting scheme, developed by the Wentworths from 1827, served to emphasise the picturesque qualities of their harbourside estate.
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