Editing Magnolia (section)

==Culture==

===Symbols===
* White or [[Yulan magnolia]] (subgenus ''Yulania'') is the official flower of [[Shanghai]].
* According to Paul Standley's Trees and Shrubs of Mexico<ref>{{Cite book |last=Standley |first=Paul Carpenter |url=https://archive.org/details/treesshrubsofmex01stan/page/274/mode/2up |title=Trees and shrubs of Mexico |date=1920 |publisher=Washington, Govt. Print. Off. |others=Smithsonian Libraries}}</ref>, a Magnolia is also called a Semiramis Tree. Semiramis was the famed Queen of Babylon known for her beauty and penchant for conquest. The Bible refers to Queen Semiramis using the phrase "Goddess of Fortresses" which is found in Daniel 11. <ref>{{Cite web |title=Daniel 11 :: King James Version (KJV) |url=https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/dan/11/1/s_861001 |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=Blue Letter Bible |language=en}}</ref>
* ''[[Magnolia grandiflora]]'' is the [[List of U.S. state flowers|state flower]] of both [[Mississippi]] and [[Louisiana]]. The flower's abundance in Mississippi is reflected in its [[state nickname|nickname]] of "Magnolia State" and the state [[Flag of Mississippi|flag]]. The magnolia is also the [[List of U.S. state trees|state tree]] of Mississippi. One of the many nicknames for [[Houston]] is "Magnolia City". Historically, magnolias have been associated with the [[Southern United States]].
* ''[[Magnolia sieboldii]]'' is the national flower of [[North Korea]] and the [[Gangnam District]] of [[Seoul]].

===Arts===
* The 1989 movie ''[[Steel Magnolias]]'' is based on a 1987 play, [[Steel Magnolias (play)|Steel Magnolias]], by [[Robert Harling (writer)|Robert Harling]]''.'' They are about the bond among a group of women from Louisiana, who can be as beautiful as magnolias, but are as tough as steel. The name 'magnolia' specifically refers to a magnolia tree about which they are arguing at the beginning.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Scanlon |first1=J. |year=2007 |title=If my husband calls I'm not here: The beauty parlor as real and representational female space |journal=Feminist Studies |volume=33 |page=2}}</ref>
* In the 1939 song "[[Strange Fruit]]", originally written as a poem by New York schoolteacher and communist activist [[Abel Meeropol]] to condemn the practice of [[lynching]], the magnolia flower was referred to as being associated with the [[Southern United States]], where many lynchings took place:
:::Pastoral scene of the gallant south
:::The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
:::''Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh'',
:::Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Despite Meeropol's frequent mention of the South and magnolia trees, the horrific image which inspired his poem, [[Lawrence Beitler]]'s 1930 photograph of the lynching of [[Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith]] following the robbery and murder of Claude Deteer, was taken in [[Marion, Indiana]], where magnolia trees are less common.
* In the 1960s, magnolias were a symbol of the South in the popular press: the ''New York Post'' noted of Lyndon Johnson that "A man who wore a ten-gallon Stetson and spoke with a magnolia accent had little hope of winning the Democratic nomination in 1960", and biographer Robert Caro picks up the symbol by saying that when Johnson became president "[t]he taint of magnolias still remained to be scrubbed off."<ref>{{cite book |first=Robert A. |last=Caro |title=[[The Passage of Power]] |volume=4 |series=[[The Years of Lyndon Johnson]]|place=New York |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |year=2012 |page=348}}</ref>

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 | image1 = Magnolias and Irises MET DT280214.jpg
 | image2 = Antonin daum e louis majorelle, lampade a tre braccia magnolia, 1903, 01.jpg
 | image3 = Xian'e Changchun Album 13.jpg
 | image4 = Palempore aux magnolias (2).jpg
 | footer = Magnolia in art
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