Magnolia x soulangeana

In the world of home decor, magnolia is a best-selling colour that outlasts every new craze because it is so easy to live with, but its biggest fan would not call it exciting. On the inside of the loose, cup shaped flowers held on a magnolia tree, the sheeny colour has all the allure you could hope for, especially when backed with pink, as here.

Magnolia x soulangeana is widely grown in Mississippi, which is where I took these pictures one January. The flowers can be pale or deep pink or more on the creamy side.

Their folk name, the saucer magnolia, puzzles me because tea saucers are so much flatter than the flowers, but if the reference is to flying saucers, I get it! Being carried on a network of bare stems well before the leaves appear gives them an unearthly look.

Magnolias have an evocative fragrance: my sweetheart says whenever and wherever he smells them, he feels like he’s home in the South.

Shared for Cee’s Flower of the Day. Her choice is a beautiful, velvety iris.