Magnolia

Magnolia is a big flowering plant genus with roughly 210 to 340 species in the Magnolioideae subfamily of the Magnoliaceae family. Pierre Magnol, a French botanist, was the inspiration for the name.

Magnolia is a very old genus. Flowers that appeared before bees are thought to have developed to promote beetle pollination. Magnolia flower carpels are highly robust to escape harm by pollination bugs. Fossilized specimens of M. acuminata going back 20 million years have been discovered, as have fossils of Magnoliaceae plants dating back 95 million years.