I’m unsure of what is more beautiful, the primitive floral arrangement of a magnolia, or how its petals cover the ground after a windy day. The curl of the stigmas arranged around the gynoecium in Fibonacci spirals, amazes me everytime. But the way the petals lay at the feet of the tree is magical. All of the spring magnolias blossomed during a recent heat wave, making the dreary winter seem to vanish away. I luckily had my camera with me on one of those brilliant warm days, and was able to capture the beauty before a freeze came and ruined all of the flowers. The blue arrow is pointing at one individual stigma, the gynoecium is a composition of many individual ovaries and their accompanying stigmas. Surrounding that cone like structure is the stamen. In one of the photos the gynoecium is underdeveloped, but it is much easier to see the flat stamen.