111/365: "Each flower is a soul opening out to nature." ~ Gérard De Nerval

Today we went on another Sunday Lunch Ride, hosted by Steve! We did a repeat of a past ride which took us from Gold Hill to the lovely little town of Rogue River for lunch, and then back along a lovely "greenway" multi-use path for several miles, and then along lovely country roads back to Gold Hill. I was excited to see what new flowers had bloomed since our last ride here a month ago.

I was overjoyed to find a seemingly endless variety of flowers to take pictures of, and I came home with several hundred images to choose from! (keep in mind that I take "aperture sets" of each subject, so I'd say the number of subjects I photographed was more like 100, but lol...that's still a lot...*cackle*...)

This magnolia blossom was from a tree across the parking lot from the cafe we had lunch at, and as I walked around taking pictures today, I found no less than five different species of magnolias, all in full, perfect blossom! I'm planning to show pictures from each tree's flowers so you can see how lovely they all were! What a show!!! (Did you know that there are more than 200 wild species of magnolia and a seemingly endless variety of cultivated hybrids?! WOW! And to think I used to think there was just ONE! :D :D :D)

Gérard de Nerval (May 22, 1808 – January 26, 1855) was the nom-de-plume of the French poet, essayist and translator Gérard Labrunie, one of the most essentially Romantic French poets.Wikipedia: Gérard de Nerval