Douglas Justice's April 2017 in the Garden | UBC Botanical Garden introduced the new interpretive signage program by highlighting Magnolia zenii and the history of its arrival to UBCBG. The interpretive sign is across Lower Asian Way from the Wilson Glade. This species is supposed to be one of the earliest to bloom, a few weeks before M. stellata, with flowers before the leaves. This is the tree - it looks like we missed the flowers for this year. Closer to the sign is this Magnolia stellata, which is in bloom, and which had me confused at first, as these are also"small, by magnolia standards", particularly compared with the magnolias that have just been in bloom.
The other sign mentioned in the blog is the one featuring a series of Rhododendron species. This sign is on Lower Asian Way, a little past Soulie trail. Douglas talked about R. thomsonii and his blog has a nice photo of that. The sign is right in front of R. arizelum, which has no flowers now, but has great leaves. Another interpretive sign features Rhododendron campanulatum. This also has great leaves, which are featured on the sign. One of my favourites yesterday is this red R. cinnabarinum, which shone brilliantly with the rare appearance of the sun.
One of my favourites from April 20 was Rhododendrom campylocarpum Subsp. campylocarpum. I was taken with the deep red buds and then the yellow flowers, but my photos made the flowers look white. I tried to correct the colour without going overboard, but I don't think I've succeeded in representing it.
