Spring Star. Magnolia stellata, Star Magnolia, Maastricht, The Netherlands

This is the pretty Spring flower of a shrub that hails from Japan. It went by several names after its discovery by westerners in the first half of the nineteenth century. By the end of that century taxonomists had settled on 'Magnolia stellata'. Soon it became a favored Spring shrub and today you'll see it generally before the greening of trees.

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