Magnolias are very ancient plants. You can tell from the structure of their flowers. They evolved before modern flowers. Modern flowers have two distinct rings of modified leaves around the flower sex parts, the petals and the sepals (often serving as bud covers to protect the flower before it opens). Magnolias evolved before the genes that code for distinct petals and sepals existed. In magnolias the genes produce only one primitive type of outer flower ring, as you can clearly see from the photo.
When modern flowers evolved, certain wasps adopted the vegetarian lifestyle to exploit the rich resources of nectar and pollen and became bees. However magnolia flowers evolved before bees. They are adapted to attract beetles as pollinators.
There are no magnolias native to Delaware County, though they are becoming more popular in our gardens as our winters become warmer. Only two species are native to the U.S, in the southeast. The magnolia’s closest relative in North America is the tulip tree. Both magnolias and tulip trees are a conspicuous part of the Appalachian forest, and there are fossils of these trees in Europe, but no magnolias or tulip trees grow wild in Europe today. Why? I’ll discuss this in my next post, unless the weather warms up and I post some cool bug photos instead.
