It’s towering, all right:

“DURING a progress of near seventy miles, through this high forest, there constantly presented to view on one hand or the other, spacious groves of this fine flowering tree [the dogwood], which must, in the spring season, when covered with blosoms present a most pleasing scene; when at the same time a variety of other sweet shrubs display their beauty, adorned in their gay apparel, as the Halesia, Stewartia, Æsculus pavia, Æsc. alba, Æsc. Florid. ramis divaricatis, thyrsis grandis, flosculis expansis incarnatis, Azalea, &c. intangled with garlands of Bignonea crucigera, Big. radicans, Big. sempervirens, Glycine frutescens, Lonicera sempervirens, &c. and at the same time the superb Magnolia grandiflora, standing in front of the dark groves, towering far above the common level.”
—William Bartram, 1773

Picture of John S. Quarterman in front of a magnolia by Gretchen Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 Dec 2006.