Magnolias

I've been remiss by not including magnolias in my chronicle of North Carolina spring blossoms. Here is a picture of my friend Di with a magnolia grandiflora flower that, when fully open, will be almost as big as her head.

Magnolia blossoms are so big, in fact, and the trees so tall, that one gets the sense that they were around when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Indeed, a little googling suggests roughly 30 million years of prehistoric overlap.