Scientific Name: Magnolia acuminata
Common Name: Cucumber Tree
Thomas Jefferson considered the cucumber tree as an ornamental species in his only published book, Notes on the State of Virginia (1781).[1] He requested plants in a 1786 letter to John Bartram, Jr., the Philadelphia botanist and nurseryman.[2] In 1810, Jefferson noted "Cucumber tree seeds" among the plantings in Monticello's nursery.[3]
This North American tree was first discovered in 1736 by Virginia's early botanist, John Clayton.[4] In 1802 the French naturalist, François Michaux, observed the cucumber tree on the banks of the Juniata River in Pennsylvania and remarked: "The inhabitants ... pick the cones when green to infuse in whiskey which gives it a pleasant bitter. This bitter is very much esteemed ... as a preventive against intermittent fevers, but I have my doubts whether it would be so generally used if it had the same qualities when mixed with water."[5]
The cucumber tree is a hardy, deciduous tree with greenish-yellow, bell-shaped flowers that appear with leaves in early spring, and has cucumber-like fruits, which are green at first and then covered with purplish-red fruits in fall.
1805 October 26 (Jefferson to Madame de Tessé). "Magnolia acuminata. this plant is not of Virginia, except it's South Western angle, 250. miles from hence. I send you the only cone of it I ever saw, and which came to me accidentally not long since. the tree I have never seen."[6]
1807 November 24. (Jefferson to Edmund Bacon). "P.S. I have forgot to mention that in the box of Paccans there are 3. papers of seeds, to wit, Cucumber tree, Mountain Laurel, & Pitch pine. the 2 former Wormley [Hughes] must plant in the Nursery."[7]
- Peggy Cornett, n.d.
