These four trees are planted on a very pleasant green in front of my post office. The mottled bark reminds me of Sycamore, but ... large flowers? On the ground are many fallen blossoms, indicating a long blooming season. There are many more marble-round buds to open. Each flower has 5 not 6 petals and reminds me of mock orange only larger. The leaf looks something like dogwood. I'm puzzled. It's obviously an ornamental. I thought at first Eucalyptus but flowers are different. The non-flaky bark is much prettier than these pictures indicate. I searched Google Images under "tree mottled bark" with no real luck. Ideas, anyone?
8 comments:
Oh heck, I've seen this tree before, but for the life of me can't remember it's name.
I'll have to ask Dave when he gets home, he's pretty good with identifying trees.
I looked on Dave's Garden, but no luck yet..
it looks so familiar to me also but I can't ID it - the closest blooming tree that I found is the Franklinia alatamaha but the leaf color isn't right and the petal count is wrong....
I took the term Franklinia and searched under that. One site said "The plant is distantly related to Loblolly-bay (Gordonia lasianthus), and to the Camellias and Stewartias (such as Stewartia ovata." I now going to search these two.
The flower of F. is identical, 5 petals.
BINGO!
Japanese Stewartia (Stewartia pseudocamelia)
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.nga.gov/feature/sculpturegarden/plantings/summer/images/stewartia-fs.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.nga.gov/feature/sculpturegarden/plantings/summer/stewartia-fs.shtm&h=450&w=600&sz=104&tbnid=w7-Bu-rzTBcJ::&tbnh=101&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3DStewartia&hl=en&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=1&ct=image&cd=1
Sorry about the length of that URL.
"stewartia, camellia and franklinia are all members of the tea family and have similar flowers."
Tea, anyone.
Thanks for the steer, Biddie. (Metaphorically speaking)
you're welcome - and, believe me - a metaphorical steer is easier to deal with than a real steer!
I just came back from following your link above - the picture is almost identical - good detective work, for sure!
A tea tree huh? I wasn't even close in my sleuthing.
Good job ladies :)
And that's no bull.
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