Ask David. He'll know what to do with it.

Very clever, floral. That's a wrap.

LOL!! Good one, floral!! At least change your identification :-))

At least you won't be running out of Dove-brand TP anytime soon.

It's Father David actually. Davidia involucrata - Wikipedia

You almost got me at first, and then I went, huh??
That is so gorgeous - never seen anything like it.

followup on my TP'd tree:

We set a trap for the scalawags and baited it with shofly pie. We caught a whole carload of them which drove down here from Pittsburgh.

It seems I am a victim of an ongoing feud. A group of innocent, young Ravens fans decided to "decorate" this Penna. Hemlock Ravens Purple (but whatever does that have to do with me?)

We sent the Pennamites packing back to Pittsburgh, pie and all.

Spring of 2020 and that tree would have been worth a lot of $$

For me the April's Fools part was thinking you'd see a rare tree like that in the front of a typical suburban yard. Hate to sound like a snob but in the average suburb of Baltimore from which Sam often posts, you'd be millions of times more likely to see a leyland cypress 'hedge' with canker, bagworms, and celastrus vine engulfing it...or a half dead Colorado blue spruce with requisite forked leader. I'm glad this homeowner is bucking the trend with choice Asian ornamentals (don't tell Doug Tallamy about it - he might cut it down 😉). If I'd driven past this scene in Bel Air or Columbia or Glen Burnie, I'd probably have wrecked my car. Funny enough Davidia is one of the only select Chinese plants I have so far eschewed. My observation has been that they eventually take up a lot of square footage...and I've come to that conclusion because every large botanical garden has one. So I decided mine didn't need one.

Back to my surprise, point is I wish Americans took land for being a more precious thing. Just on my street, I'm come close to writing an anonymous letter to someone, imploring them to remove the Asian bittersweet taking over their yard. (but it would be too obvious who it came from!) The exception in the US seems to be places where land is insanely, breathtakingly expensive, like Berkeley or Santa Barbara. Lots there were generally nicely kept...and planted with an interesting variety of plants. I barely did enough driving around Seattle during my couple days there to see U Washington Arboretum, but my brief impression was it was an improvement too...maybe a notch down from Berkeley but a step above the old money parts of the Philly Mainline and Bucks county.

Anyhow, thanks for sharing sam. I always love your pic posts and they are a main reason I still lurk (mostly) here.

I have never seen so many bracts on a tree like that before. Excellent specimen. How are you doing Sam? Going to be at Green Spring this year?

Hi NoVA Dave. Can't do GS this year, scheduling conflict.

I always enjoyed your posts about the BLEs. Do you ever see xGordlinia in the DMV? If so, make some observations about it, I'd like to know more.

Sorry, wrong David, but I'll share my observation about Gordlinia. It wasn't an especially vigorous grower and seemed to die of root rot. But sheesh...those flowers are amazing and worth it. I'm trying one more time with a fresh plant; I plan to inoculate it with some kind of biofungicide. (maybe the fact this one is the tetraploid 'Sweet Tea' will help...or not? https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/x-gordlinia-grandiflora-sweet-tea/ "still a bit finicky!") That being said some posh lady gardener/garden designer on Long Island who I used to follow on social media, though, found it more vigorous and disease resistant than straight Franklinia...which would make sense because it has more genetic diversity. She implied Franklinia was totally impossible to grow for her. I seem to recall you have a mature Franklin Tree in your garden but I'd say you are very, very lucky, they have a well deserved reputation for croaking. For example there was a huge tree at the old Dilworth Nursery in Oxford, PA, I saw on my first visit in the mid 1990s. (my first visit to a specialist nursery ever, i should add) When I was there before they closed in 2012, I asked them about it and they said it had long ago died.