Here is our magnolia tree during last summer's drought. The flower petals (technically they're called tepals, not petals) are gone but the potential for next season is safely stored inside these cones or seedpods.
Apparently the genus Magnolia, named after the French botanist, Pierre Magnol, is very old. Fossilized specimens have been found dating back 20 million years! I read that the flowers developed in this form so that beetles could pollinate them - evidently bees weren't in existence yet. Our tree is a Magnolia grandiflora which is native to the southeastern U.S.
The leaves and bud coverings are all very thick and leathery, obviously a protective mechanism that's helped it to survive. These buds are on our tree today but so are many beautiful white flowers.I wish you could smell the light, citrus-like smell of this beautiful flower. The flowers look like this for most of their blooming time, but right before the tepals fall off they open up wide so you can see inside....
... like this. Look how amazing the inside is! Once open like this, a magnolia blossom can be 12 inches across.
I can't get a good picture of our whole tree because of all the other vegetation in our yard, but it is very, very tall. (Magnolia grandiflora can grow to be 90 feet high.) One section of it suffered greatly during Hurricane Hugo and it is thin in that area, but I look at it as a war wound - something to be proud of!
Here it is, the tallest in the front yard. See the bare area in the left middle section? That's the damage from Hugo.
And here is our baby magnolia tree Saeed planted a couple of weeks ago. If I were to insert it into the picture above, it would be about as tall as that birdfeeder in front of the old magnolia tree. This tree (well, the planting date) is about as old as Cyrus:-)
5 comments:
Great pictures!!
Yay. I'm so glad Daddy planted a magnolia tree there. I was not happy with the pine tree he originally planted. What happened to it?
-Shirin
It fell over in a big windy storm. Yikes!
Wait a minute, the pine tree did not fell over! In fact there never was a pine tree there. Unless you mean the 3-inch Autrian pine that I have been trying to get germinated there. I do not believe you mean that pine because it was so small when you last were in our yard, you could harly see it. If you do really mean that, well, it is now about 6 inches, growing slowly right in the shadow of the new magnolia, which we call, Cyrus Magnolia.
Maybe I'm thinking of the Japanese Ginko tree. Whatever it was, it was fairly large and fell on its side with the roots pulled out.
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