Arbor Day and Friday Fabulous Flower

 

Well, it's arbor day and a Friday, so lets feature a tree in flower.  Somehow mostly via flowering shrubs our gardens have become pretty diverse, a bit over 150 trees and shrubs.  Now of course there are quite a few gymnosperms, and since they technically lack flowers, they won't be flowering any time soon.  This is a pretty young tree but it flowered at a young age.  This is Halesia carolina, Carolina silver bell, which are actually ivory colored, but certainly bells.  It can become a decent sized tree with time.  Like all members of the Styrax family, the flowers are pendent.  This silver bell and the epaulet tree (Pterostyrax) are the showiest. TPP had an epaulet tree but it died last year, maybe because it was growing under a black walnut. Happy arbor day!