Trees or shrubs, often aromatic. Leaves alternate, entire or toothed, stipulate or exstipulate. Flowers axillary or terminal, solitary or fascicled, often large. Sepals 3, seldom more, deciduous. Petals 3–6, in several rows, hypogynous, imbricate in the bud. Stamens indefinite, hypogynous; anthers adnate. Carpels either many and imbricated on an elongated receptacle, or few in a single page 29whorl on a flat receptacle, always 1-celled. Ovules 2 or several, attached to the ventral suture. Ripe carpels either dry and follicular, or succulent and berried, rarely woody. Seeds solitary or several; embryo minute, at the base of copious albumen.

A small order, mainly found in eastern and tropical Asia and North America. Genera 11; species about 80. Some of the species of Magnolia are strikingly beautiful in both flowers and foliage, and must rank among the finest known trees. The sole New Zealand genus is a somewhat anomalous member of the order, belonging to the tribe Wintereæ, characterized by the exstipulate leaves, polygamous flowers, and the carpels few in number in a single whorl.