Near-black bud
The closed flower concentrates pigment across a small surface, creating its darkest visual moment.
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Family: Magnoliaceae · Pot: 23 cm · Height: approx. 70 cm
Magnolia ‘Jurmag1’ Black Tulip® is pure spring drama: before the leaves unfold, large closed flowers rise along the branches like black velvet tulips. Their colour moves between deep burgundy, plum and almost black-purple as the light changes. The flower's simple, undecorated form makes that dark palette even more commanding. Few spring flowers possess comparable visual gravity.
Give it open sky and room to become a tree and it will form one of the garden's most photogenic spring landmarks. Against a pale wall or silver foliage, every flower gains an almost sculptural presence and the whole composition looks immediately more mature and collectible.
Black Tulip® is distinguished by near-black bud and two further characters specific to this exact selection.
The closed flower concentrates pigment across a small surface, creating its darkest visual moment.
Thick tepals stay upright to form a deep cup without a pale inner contrast.
With time it becomes a substantial tree rather than remaining a small flowering shrub.
Why you will love it: it brings spring's darkest colour in flowers so cleanly formed that they look carved.
Plant alone in lawn or against a pale, quiet background, sheltered from strong wind and with sufficient room for its mature tree-scale diameter.
Pair with Betula utilis var. jacquemontii, Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’ and Helleborus × hybridus to contrast white bark, silver foliage and dark flower.
Sun to bright partial shade, sheltered from drying easterly wind. Morning light and a calm microclimate help the flowers open cleanly.
Water deeply during establishment and prolonged summer drought. Roots appreciate even moisture but not heavy, permanently saturated ground.
Woody growth is hardy, although open flowers may be damaged by late frost. A site away from frost pockets protects the display.
An ornamental tree, not a food product. Do not use bark, flowers or leaves for consumption without specialist botanical identification.
Sun to bright partial shade, sheltered from drying easterly wind. Morning light and a calm microclimate help the flowers open cleanly.
Water deeply during establishment and prolonged summer drought. Roots appreciate even moisture but not heavy, permanently saturated ground.
Provide deep, fertile, organic, freely drained soil, preferably slightly acid to neutral. Avoid compaction and digging over the fleshy surface roots.
Apply compost around the crown and a restrained feed in early spring. Excess nitrogen favours extension at the expense of wood ripening and flower buds.
Prune only when necessary, just after flowering: remove dead, crossing or weak branches. Large cuts heal slowly and distort the natural habit.
Leaf fall is normal. Keep roots buffered with organic mulch and protect only young potted plants from prolonged deep freezing.
In its first years the magnolia invests more in roots and a few sound axes than in rapid bulk. An undisturbed root zone and deep watering during drought build its framework securely.
A young plant begins relatively narrow with a strong central leader. Each season adds longer lateral limbs and short flowering spurs, gradually changing the outline from shrub-like to an open-branched tree.
At maturity it becomes an upright vase-shaped tree 8–12 m high and 4–8 m wide, with strong open limbs and dark spring flowers.
A deciduous Magnolia with an upright and vase-shaped crown, a clear branch framework and flowers distributed along the main limbs.
In winter the clean branch framework remains; leaflessness is a natural part of the cycle.
Black Tulip® belongs to the important line of magnolias developed by the Jury family in North Taranaki, New Zealand. In 1986 Mark C. Jury made a controlled cross using the deep-red Magnolia ‘Vulcan’ as seed parent and the large-flowered Magnolia ‘Iolanthe’ as pollen parent.
Among the seedlings, one was selected for exceptionally dark, evenly coloured flowers with a clean tulip posture. It was propagated asexually so that its colour, form and upright development remained stable from plant to plant. In the United States application it received the code ‘Jurmag1’ together with the trade name Black Tulip.
That parentage explains how the cultivar combines the velvety dark palette of ‘Vulcan’ with larger flowers and a stronger tree-like presence inherited through ‘Iolanthe’. It is not simply a “dark magnolia”, but the exact result of a planned hybridisation and years of selection under New Zealand conditions.
In the closed bud, overlapping tepals increase the thickness of tissue traversed by light. More anthocyanin and a longer optical path explain why the bud appears almost black.
The female part of a flower becomes receptive before its own stamens fully release pollen. This timing reduces self-fertilisation and favours transfer by beetles.
Six precise answers for Black Tulip®, from its present scale to mature behaviour.
The listed approx. 70 cm is its height on arrival. Long-term placement must allow for a mature scale of 8–12 m by 4–8 m rather than today's young outline.
Plant alone in lawn or against a pale, quiet background, sheltered from strong wind and with sufficient room for its mature tree-scale diameter.
Water deeply during establishment and prolonged summer drought. Roots appreciate even moisture but not heavy, permanently saturated ground.
Prune only when necessary, just after flowering: remove dead, crossing or weak branches. Large cuts heal slowly and distort the natural habit.
Botanically the colour is exceptionally deep burgundy-purple rather than neutral black. It looks darkest in cool weather, a closed bud and oblique light.
The main display is in spring. A few sporadic later flowers may appear in some years, but this is not continuous summer flowering.