Friday Fabulous Flower - What big leaves you have.

 

As is usually the case, a coolish, wettish, spring switched over to summer dry heat over night.  So the strawberries will start to ripen (a good thing) and the last of the spring flowers will bloom, for our gardens this is a large, old-fashioned looking Rhododendron (close to a wild type) that flowers now.  A nice-sized (small tree) big-leafed Magnolia also flowers about now, Magnolia tripetala in a couple of days Magnolia megaphylla var. ashei will also flower; it's basically a shrub.  When tripetala flowers, the flowers look like big white, candles (about 6" tall) at the ends of the branches.  So this is a brand new just-opened flower bud.