Such wonderful photos! I love and have almost all of these flowers, of course mine aren't blooming yet.

It is interesting to note that the magnolia (which I am lucky to have a young tree in my yard) is a very ancient tree. It actually predates bees existence, so I was told and thus it's lovely large tulip like flowers are not able to be pollinated by bees. Instead, there is a type of beetle that moves into the flowers lives a bit feasting on it and then drop off. Bees are attracted to the flowers, but by the time they arrive the flower is already pollinated by the little creatures who arrived when the bud was tighter. They are a simpler flower as well, being ancient, so there they don't technically have petals, but those are their sepals, thus they are leathery and stronger and last longer. That is the case with another of my favourite early spring plants, the Hellebore. Their long lived flowers are sepals not petals and thus can stand up to the cold and snow, as they bloom as early as Feb or march.

It's also interesting to note that the lyre flower is called a '|Bleeding Heart' in the US and UK. It does have the look of a heart with a drop of blood. I think it is also tied to Christianity and the Resurrection etc.

The rose was selective breed for so long by man, thus their 'sex organs' are more hidden because man saw the potential in what was a single open flower of the roses' progenitor to occasionally have a mishap and mutate with more petals and thus man can easily step in for the bees and pollinate the flowers selectively thus the vast amount of beautiful varieties we have. I do some self pollinating myself. For example when I grow things in a greenhouse sometimes I act at the 'bee' and use a paint brush to move pollen from the anther to the stigma. I have been doing this to my cucumbers because I stared them way too early this year ( I was impatient for Spring) and they set flowers months ago so I used a paint brush and did the deed. It worked and I have little cukes forming now. It'll be another few weeks before they can go outside.

I love roses, and have quite a few. In fact, yesterday I bought two new ones, one was a bush rose the other a climber.

I love these photos and blogs about plants! Keep them coming!