This tree is the Magnolia grandiflora, commonly known as the southern magnolia or bull bay. It is a tree of the family Magnoliaceae native to the southeastern United States, from Virginia south to central Florida, and west to eastern Texas and Oklahoma. Reaching 27.5 m (90 ft) in height, it is a large striking evergreen tree with large dark green leaves and large white fragrant flowers.
Exceptionally large trees recorded include a 35 m (114 ft) high specimen from the Chickasawhay District, De Soto National Forest in Mississippi which measured 17 feet 8 inches in circumference at breast height, from 1961, and a 30 m (99 ft) tall tree from Baton Rouge in Louisiana which reached 18 feet in circumference at breast height. (courtesy Wikipedia.com)
This giant is one of the largest magnolia trees you will ever see.
I personally measured this tree in August 2013 to be over 30m (100 ft) tall and 20 feet 2.5 inches in circumference at breast height. I am in the process of trying to get it registered as a historic tree in Texas.
Although it may look like it grows a cone, it is actually an aggregate fruit that is woody. Magnolias are some of the most primitive of all flowering plants, but the seeds are enclosed in the fruit during their development, and therefore they must be classified as angiosperms, not as gymnosperms-the group to which conifers belong. As the fruit matures, scale-like areas on it split apart and the seeds, covered in a red fleshy aril, are exposed as they are in gymnosperms. (courtesy The United States National Arboretum www.usna.usda.gov)
The Hopewell Magnolia resides in an old Texas cemetery beside the Hopewell Baptist Church in Smith County, Tx. The settlement of Hopewell, Texas was founded in 1887 when a post office was established here. The Hopewell Baptist Church was founded in 1910.
This old tree was likely here well before then, or it may have been planted in the new little cemetery about that time. Only God and the Sweet Magnolia knows for sure.