I believe this is a magnolia tree but I am unable to identify what species. This is growing on the mountain side in the Linville Gorge Wilderness in North Carolina. My search on the web found two images that matched the bloom but neither identified them on their respective web page. I thank you in advance for any help in identifying this tree before I post it on my hiking web site and look stupid.

I can't see the leaves on your plant very clearly so they may not be a match but my first thought was it reminded me of Chinese Fringe Flower (Loropetalum chinense)

Magnolia's are hard from pics...to be accurate you need to count the tepals...(look like Petals)
It is probably Magnolia fraseri.
This is listed for the area.
See page 304 Appendix 2
http://labs.bio.unc.edu/Peet/p...


https://www.wildflower.org/pla...

The blooms sure look like they fit for Fraser Magnolia (Magnolia fraseri) We don't have any bloom photos in our database but there are leaf photos for comparison.

If you feel Magnolia fraseri is the correct identity, I hope you will consider adding your bloom photo to our database.

Thank you again Silversurfer. That was it.

Plantladylin, I have added the photo to your database.

Here is the only other photo I have which shows more of the tree. It was perched on the cliff side of the mountain and I had trouble getting a better shot than this.