My first attempt to propagate the Magnolia Flowering Tree

 By Amin Osman

 

Bees foraging on a magnolia flower on the family's former property in Balfour, Beau Bassin.
Photo (c): Shafick Osman, 29 December 2007.

I had worked at the Barkly Experiment Station of the Ministry of Agriculture in Beau Bassin for a few years, and I never heard of the Magnolia Flowering Tree. My elder brother Sir Raman Osman, a keen amateur horticulturist who had moved from Quatre Bornes to Baie du Tombeau where he had had a bungalow built to spend his retirement as a Senior Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court, challenged me to provide him with a young Magnolia tree in 1970 or so.

He told me that there were two beautiful Magnolia grandiflora trees in the grounds of the Vacoas Headquarters where the former Colonial Secretaries were residing. I visited the gardens and as they were covered with large showy flowers, I decided to have a go. 

 

My elder brother Sir Raman Osman, a keen amateur horticulturist who had moved from Quatre Bornes to Baie du Tombeau where he had had a bungalow built to spend his retirement as a Senior Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court, challenged me to provide him with a young Magnolia tree in 1970 or so.

I consulted the textbooks and after some research in locally published magazines, I read the article written by Sydney Moutia, a qualified Horticulturist, in the then Revue Agricole. There was a girls’ secondary school of the Catholic Diocese at Curepipe Road. It was in an old wooden house and the main alley was planted with Magnolia trees which did not resist a very severe cyclone and all the trees were blown down. Sydney Moutia who was working at Barkly well before me in the 60s was contacted and he succeeded to propagate a dozen saplings using stems of the blown down trees which he placed in the Mist Propagator where they rooted after some weeks and he produced saplings which he gave to the Manager of the school and these were eventually planted to replace the blown down trees.

In the meantime, I collected seeds and air layered (provin) some mature stems just as we were doing for the propagation of litchis. At the same time, I cut a dozen stems and placed in our Mist Propagator at Barkly. Both methods of propagation gave good results and we then started to sell saplings. I bought some saplings and gave Mot (Raman Osman’s nickname in the family) a few. He planted one in his big garden at Baie du Tombeau and donated the others, I remember he gave one to Haroun Fakim, husband of our niece Gori and they planted it in front of their newly built house at Abdoollatiff Osman Avenue, Quatre Bornes.

I planted one in my garden at Volcy de la Faye Street, Beau Bassin, next to the Plaines Wilhems Irrigation Canal, which crossed our property. It is still there and have been flowering regularly since. Everybody coming for the first time was admiring the large white flowers during the flowering season. I am proud of this achievement which reminded both of Mot and the period which I spent at Barkly as a Senior Technical Officer in charge of Plant Propagation.

 

Coromandel (Mauritius),
12 November 2021

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Amin Osman is the son of Mahomed Osman.