The message
from Inge Jones contains these words:

In article ,
says...
Hi - I wonder if anyone can give me some advice. I purchased a
magnolia at
a garden centre yesterday - Heaven Scent. This was the only one of this
variety that they had although they had many other varieties in flower.

The shrub\tree is approx 5ft 6inches tall and is covered in leave
bud but no
flower bud to be seen. Now I have planted it I am a little worried that I
have bought one that is 'sterile' or non flowering as so many of the other
varieties at the centre were in flower.

If it was never going to flower, it wouldn't be
(expensively)propagated for sale.

are there male\female
magnolias.

No.

I have never had
a tree or shrub that flowered the same year it was planted, unless it
was already in flower at the nursery.

Then you must be a very inexperienced gardener. It's perfectly
possible to buy/plant bare trees/shrubs in winter, when they are not
flowering, and have them flower in their first growing season in their
new home.

I don't really think plants like being moved when they're flowering, but
some nurseries sell them like that to make them more attractive.

You're mistaken again. Plants grown in pots move perfectly well at any
time of year.

But anyway, I don't think magnolias blossom before they leaf like fruit
trees do.

Many of the spring-flowering magnolias flower before they leaf.
Not all fruit trees do.

Isn't a magnolia a later flowerer?

Depends which kind it is.

Male and female of sexually reproducing plants both flower, that's how
the pollen gets transferred. The gender difference is in the seeding or
fruiting.

??????????? What does that mean?

You are quite wrong to imply that all sexually reproducing plants are
either male OR female, and only female plants fruit or seed.

Janet.