- promise of food

- getting ready for migrating birds
- fruits of this Southern Magnolia hold many bright red seeds

"The fruit of the magnolia looks like a cone.

Although it may look like a cone, it is actually an aggregate fruit that is woody. This flowering structure has changed little over millions of years. Magnolias are some of the most primitive of all flowering plants, but the seeds are enclosed in the fruit during their development, and therefore they must be classified as angiosperms, not as gymnosperms-the group to which conifers belong. As the fruit matures, scale-like areas on it split apart and the seeds, covered in a red fleshy aril, are exposed as they are in gymnosperms."

- from The National Arboretum site
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