2 years after planting, my Magnolia now flowers quiet freely... Had to share a couple of photos I took this morning......
Not that the spider cares but notice that the stamens are already dropping from your flowers. Next time maybe try to get shots at an earlier stage. You will get many more chances, this one blooms freely and for a long time from a small size - as you are starting to see.
The flowers must've opened very early this morning as they were half there last night. We had a few showers and sadly my camera isn't good enough to clearly pick up the little 'puddles' gathered in the petals.... I've seen the fruit on these before and am wondering if anyone has a actually tried to grow these? The plant has a PBR on it here thus not allowing reproduction for sale therefore I've never tried to propagate it at work. I don't know how this law is relavant overseas or to the home gardener?
The stereotypic routine with magnolias is the center opening one day and exposing the stigmas at the top of the cone in the center, while the tepals around the side remain closed and shielding the stamens. The next day the stigmas are through and the stamens are exposed by the flower opening widely. So there is a cupped phase one day and a saucer phase the next. I think some are open quite a bit longer than two days and it would seem there would be some variation between species. In nature some are serviced by beetles, others bees. Beetles are supposed to come to eat the stamens, picking up and spreading pollen in the process. So having the stamens falling off and lying around on the tepals like finger sandwiches doesn't necessarily indicate the party is over, even if the flower no longer looks fresh. Pollen-coated beetles trying to get at the stamens may be forced over the stigmas by the cupped shape of the flower in the first stage. Seedlings of a 'Little Gem' would not be the same clone unless you happened to get one going from a seed produced through apomixis, which unlike various rose family trees and other plants I don't think magnolias ever exhibit - at least I don't remember ever seeing anything about it. Maybe it's a comparatively modern strategy. Well, I guess since ferns and a cypress can be apomictic, I guess it's not so new. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apomixis
